Excellent post.
I knew John was on our side, but I had no idea how involved he was.
This is a point I have been pushing for years.
We need people who can make, build, invent and repair THINGS. If we somehow could turn 50,000 of our destructive/make-work lawyers and government inspectors into constructive skilled tradesmen, this country would be on a much more sane future glide path.
Pay off your kids’ mortgage and let them pay for tuition from their savings each month. What helped us was paying off our mortgage in 15 years. We then had about a thousand dollars a month to use to pay for our son’s college education. True, the state university still cost about $15,000 a year to attend, but there was no way for us to save that kind of money AND pay on a mortgage.