<p>A public university may not always be the answer…but many times it is, and many times parents don’t even consider sending their kids to the public university. You don’t have to commute to make it cheaper. For example, the tuition, fees, room, and board for a Georgia state resident at University of Georgia (my home state’s flagship) is just over $15,000 per year. A state resident with a 3.0 or higher gets their tuition paid for through HOPE, so that brings the cost down to just $8,000 per year (or $32,000 over four years). You don’t have to commute, at those prices.</p>
<p>Even if the kid does live at home for 10 years, $30K per year is $120K after four years. Under a traditional repayment program, that’s $1400/month for 10 years - which will be a millstone around her child’s neck even if she’s making $50,000 before taxes straight out of school. (She’s definitely not going to be making $120,000 - even i-bankers with only bachelor’s degrees don’t make that.) Even if she does income-based repayment that caps her loans at 10-15% of her income (depending on whether the loan reform bill passes), that’s still meaning that she’s got to fork over 10% of her income for 25 years.</p>