Personally, I that each person and their family be responsible for that student's college fees. Who else should be more responsible for paying for someone's education than the person who is receiving it? In this manner, people are much more likely to make the best use of the education they're getting and select an area of study that is marketable to pay the loan they've taken out for that education (if any)

I may be a little tainted of mind as recently one of the state colleges where I live came under fire because nearly 25% of tuition costs from each student were being redirected to fun scholarships of different types. You can imagine the push back from middle class families working multiple jobs to send their child to school learning this.

So now having said that, I have to point the finger at myself and say that we're currently taking advantage of multiple academic scholarships which pay for our eldest DS's tuition. If we can legally use money offered to us by others without needing to pay it back, yes, we're going to and likely so will nearly everyone else.

So what is the most "fair" way? Well, the way I look at it, everyone who "gets ahead" either worked for it or had someone or numerous people in their family who worked for it / invested wisely / made wise decisions. It's not "fair" to force others to pay for the education of someone / some family who didn't work for it / didn't make wise investments / didn't make wise decisions. The most fair way is for each person who attends college to pay for their education themselves or their family to supply the means to do so. Notice I didn't say equal, I said fair.

Last edited by Old Dad; 01/08/14 11:22 AM.