<p>Dad23 - You sound like a wonderful, conscientious, caring Dad. The only tidbit I would add is to consider having a family pow-wow to go over the family's balance sheet and budget (including future family expenditures such as your daughter's upcoming college education). Seeing the family's finances in black-and-white will hopefully tell the tale. It may not be pretty or what your son wants to see, but it will be the facts. (As I'm sure you know, a mantra from financial planners is also not to jeopardize your savings for retirement versus spending for college.) </p>
<p>Now for a more personal note about one of the factors influencing my advice to my younger son on what college to attend - public versus private. Like your kids, my son had a number of friends from affluent backgrounds in an affluent suburb. Money and where it came from did not impact their lives much. With my wife and I coming from families with limited means, we were (and are) worried that the lesson of the "value of a dollar" had not adequately sunk in.</p>
<p>In the end, though we could well-afford the private college, I recommended that my son attend the state university in part because he would be exposed to all social classes, not just the primarily affluent surburbanites at the private college. It's year two for him at the state university and the experiment so far appears to be working.</p>