Wife and I sent all of our children to state schools so we could afford to pay for their educations. We sacrificed so they could enter the adult world without a debt albatross around their necks. In retrospect, it’s one of the smartest things we did. As they look at relatives struggling with student debt, they appreciate more and more what we did for them. Nice to know we did at least one thing right as parents.
We did the same thing, but two went out of state. Even so, out-of-state tuition outside California wasn’t much different from in-state IN California. They each came out with about $15k of debt, a manageable load. One finished her Master’s degree. All three have excellent careers started. It was one heck of a period of beans and franks to get them through with minimal debt.