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@Mamaof2: We won't be paying for our future LO's college. I would love to, but I know for a fact there is no way we would ever be able to afford it. DH and I didn't get any help, and we are paying off our student loans. There's no way we can pay for our mortgage, our student loans, and put away money for our future LO's education. It's just not in our cards.

Good question and I bet you will get a variety of responses!

For our family, both DH and I went to a private college that we loved (that's where we met!) and we graduated debt-free thanks to the generosity of our parents. We plan to have LOs work through college to pay for their own living expenses and part of the tuition, but we are trying to save in a 529k in order to offer them the same college choices we had.

@MsLipGloss: Same here! Hubby and I want to take on as much of the burden as possible given they're doing academically well and are striving for something. If we need to take out loans, we plan on being the one paying it back post graduation unless they insist on paying it themselves once they're in a job/career.

I'm hoping my kids will go to college in Europe, where it is practically free (they are dual citizens).

@MsLipGloss: Same!

We would LOVE to pay for our childrens college expenses. We are hoping we can help out at least a little bit. If we do, we will not help out until they finish school, and it doesn't matter what education it is. And most likely it will be just the tuition costs. I see no harm in letting them learn about how working and saving money works and how you need to budget your money. I also hope that by not providing them that money up front, it will push them harder to apply for scholarships/grants. I learned so much from having to foot my own university bills.

Part of it. I actually think having to pay a reasonable share of the costs makes a person value the education more -- this was true on my situation, for sure. I wasn't crippled by debt at the end but having to take some responsibility, make loan payments, etc was good for me and is what we plan for our kids.

Yes, as much as possible. Undergrad for sure, and hopefully grad school, too. My parents paid for my entire education - college, law school, living expenses - and I'm eternally grateful to them that I was able to pursue the education I wanted without having to worry about how to afford it.

We won't be. I'd like to help out, but we definitely won't be paying for it all. I don't think there's any way we could afford to pay for it all.

I want to help with living expenses, especially for things like internships, but I want to encourage pursuing scholarships to cover tuition and factoring cost into school choice.

SO wavers on what he'd want to do.

We're both united on making sure that what we do for one, we can do for any others, or we won't do it at all. SIL #1 is pretty close in age and the ILs were helping her with some expenses at the exact same time they were telling SO he was on his own.

@looch: We hope our girls choose the University I work at. If I could be assured of that, it would even make a 3rd child a possibility, but of course we can't guarantee it!

We'd like to help as much as we can. He's also very fortunate, because his grandparents and great-grandmother have set up college funds for him themselves (in addition to what we're doing), so if he chooses to attend college (and we hope he will, although we won't demand it) he'll be financially able, and if he doesn't he'll have the money available for other pursuits (which would hopefully be some sort of post-secondary education, if not a traditional college).

We plan to pay for our daughter's college or secondary training (and if we decide to have any future children, we would pay for their school too) as long as she gets good grades throughout high school and applies for as many scholarships as possible, and maintains a high enough GPA throughout college to keep the scholarships she earns. This is what my parents did, and I really appreciate them paying for my school and the fact that I entered marriage debt-free--unlike my husband, whose mother would have paid for his college if she could but couldn't, so he has a lot of loans. He doesn't wish loans on our child either because he knows how stressful it has been for him.

However, like @char54 said, they will be also expected to get summer jobs and, at least after their first year, on-campus employment to cover any spending money, "extras", and books. And after their four years of college, or their first technical program, there would be the expectation that they're on their own to finance graduate school (though, as long as we have the money, we will loan them some to help them get started, with the expectation it would be paid back--that's what my parents did for us, and my dad's dad did for him). There would also be the expectation that we won't be paying for a super-elaborate wedding, just something small and simple, and if they want anything bigger they can fund it themselves.

We will help out as much as we can, but I know there will be no way to fully fund all our children to go to college. I am hoping they inherit my DH's brains and my athletic skills and get some sort of academic or athletic scholarships, lol. But we will see!

@Mrs. Jacks: This is exactly my reason to save for college. Yes, having to pay their own way (to an extent) teaches money and life skills, but it also greatly impacts their choices.

My plan is this: I'm saving a fairly modest amount for her college education. Probably about enough to pay for in state tuition. If she wants our financial support, she'll have a few options.

1. She can choose a degree or course of study that provides her with immediate job skills. Teacher, premed, paramedic, whatever.

2. She can choose a degree that is real world useful (eg biology, film production) and do summer internships to get job experience to position her to be employable on graduation.

3. She can choose to study whatever random thing (art history, opera performance), on the condition that she goes to the local community college for a few terms and gets a license in phlebotomy or ultrasound tech or whatever. Something that could support her while she pursued her dream.

We definitely plan on paying for our LO's college and not at the risk of our retirement money.

These two are completely separate financial line items in our budget that we save for accordingly.

Hopefully all of it. I wouldn't want him to feel hindered in his choices, nor do I want him dealing with major debt.

We have started saving for college but they might not be able to go to the most expensive college and I don't plan on saving for that.

They have dual citizenship so going to college in Europe is a possibility. They could go to University where my husband or I work or one of the associated schools where they get a discount. Or both DH and I were DI athletes so I'm expecting athletic scholarships .

I'm hoping that they choose one of the ways to discount college so they can used the money saved for other things.

We plan to pay for all schooling. We're in a position where we can, for hopefully up to 4 kids. If they all decide to be doctors though, we might have to get them to chip in!