It’s because we considered this very thing that we decided we’d rather give our disposable income to a college than to contractors, car dealerships, credit card payments, realtors, local government (in the form of property taxes), hotels and airlines, and banks (in the form of interest on borrowed money). I’m at peace with spending money on college. Who knows what the future will bring. If I get Alzheimer’s or some other expensive wasting illness in my old age, I’m not going to have any money to bequeath heirs anyway. So I might as well spend it on their education while I’ve got it.