My parents paid for me to attend a private university in the late 80’s, for which I’m both extremely fortunate and grateful.

I wanted to do the same for my children, but there was no way. I pay half, my parents pay half, and my kids have very small loans.

I was experiencing significant disappointment that I wasn’t able to pay for my kids’ education the way my parents paid for mine.

At one point I used an inflation calculator to get an idea of how much my education cost in today’s dollars, and it turns out that when it’s corrected for inflation, I’m paying what my parents paid. My kids’ education is more than twice as expensive as mine was if you correct for inflation.