I guess what I'm saying is-- it's all well and good to sneer at taking the full-ride at a "state" school-- rather than an Extremely Elite Education that comes at twice (or more) the price--
but bear in mind that perspective is a great thing here. "Debt-free"
anywhere is no longer chump change, relative to what college costs now-- even at the LOW end of the expense scale.
It's also all well and good to rely upon "merit aid" but
that money is also falling shorter and shorter of covering the costs, too, and frankly, there is a lot less of it to go around.
Debt-free is going to become a mirage for almost
all families sometime within the next decade. There's almost no way to save this much unless you are nearly no longer "middle class" (whatever that means), and investing doesn't work because your returns can NOT keep up with rates of inflation in this sector. Our financial advisor basically told us that it was a no-win situation and we'd be much better off saving like MAD for our own retirement, then scaling back and diverting that cash toward out of pocket payment at the time when college expenses became a thing.
Maybe the building
is on fire. Then again, it feels increasingly as though this building might actually be in Dresden. In 1945. So maybe there isn't a way to exactly
escape from it. Pretty sure that jumping out the window isn't the answer, though.
