I wish we could take charge of the "free" high school education the same way we do with college. Living in one of the states with incredibly high property taxes where a huge chunk of it goes to the public school system, I wish we could take that money and put it where we see fit. Especially since we're now homeschooling and paying. On a house valued at about $200K we're paying almost $9000 (and steadily climbing by $300-$800 per year!) in property tax and out of that about $6500 goes to the schools! Being a lower middle class family, that seriously hurts our pockets. If we lived in a state where schools are funded differently and we could keep this $ and put it aside, it would make the whole college education funding situation a lot different. We will definitely need some creative financing figured out by the time our boys are ready for college if they decide to go to college that is. Unless they get GOOD scholarships and work while in college, there's just no way.

Not to mention, my view has always been that the parents responsibility ends at the end of high school. With that in mind, the kids will need to be serious about high school if they ever want more than a high school diploma. My parents paid for my living expenses while I went to college back in Europe because there were no jobs for students and the studying was so intense there just was no way to work while at school, but there was no tuition and it was fairly easily manageable. Then they paid for my plane tickets for me to come and study in the US and that was it. The rest was up to me. I went with the Grad school that gave me the best deal. I never regretted getting a degree from a University in the middle of nowhere because I absolutely loved the people and the atmosphere and unlike many others graduated debt free.