Although I'm not a parent, I've always thought the best way to handle college expenses fairly if I had kids, was to decide how much a month I would put away for each child and start socking it away when they were born. A lump sum for each child should accrue.

My parents and my husband's parents paid for our college. We'd like to do the same for our kids, but the math doesn't work out. We have a 1 and 4 year old, and we're putting away all we can afford, but it won't be enough. College tuition is going up much faster than inflation and salaries. The current estimate for tuition in the 2020s is $250k per child, and I think that's low. Even with lots of compounding, there's no way. Especially not after also saving for our retirement, and supporting my destitute MIL in her retirement years... It's depressing!