I recently retired from a nearly 40 year stint in education. Several of those years were spent teaching auto collision at a technical college, then a HS, a HS principal, a director of a technical college and finally ending my career in private Christian Schools. I have some thoughts, obviously.
The reason college education is so expensive is because money is so easy to get. Just sign here for the student loan and you can worry, or mostly NEVER think about the payments later on. I blame the parents for that. A little planning and TEACH YOUR KIDS ABOUT MONEY and EDUCATION.
For career and technical education, avoid the private, for profit schools. They have great ads and sales people but their ROI is terrible. Several were shut down a few years ago because of the financial aid scams they were running. Where I live there were bringing in inner city kids to a 2 year, for profit school to play basketball. The amount of debt they accumulated was remarkable, they had no concept along with their parents who signed loans along with them.
In my state of Kansas nearly every HS student can attend a community or technical college for free and obtain a certificate in that area. Some may need to attend another year, no big deal, stay at home, get a PT job and pay as you go. Those are out there, you just have to take advantage of them and quit complaining about how much everything costs when there are options right under your noses!
No one needs to go into debt to attend any college or school. You choose to that but you don't need to. I preached these to my students and to parents as well for nearly 40 years.
1. Teach your student to save for their future, it starts young, doesn't need to be a lot of money, just start and talk about it when they are old enough
2. Develop good work habits, and teach them the importance of good, not perfect grades. Both my kids had 30+ ACT scores, one was a valedictorian. She was an incredibly hard worker and still is today. That work earned her multiple scholarships to the private Christian school of her choice.
3. I heard complain in HS, saying, if I just got paid for grades I would do better. Well, sometimes the payoff is in the future.
4. Take advantage of high schools that work with local community or technical colleges, get all the "free" education you can. So what if a kid decides after two years of welding, she/he doesn't want to do that everyday. They can easily do it part time while earning a BS degree if that is what they want to do.
5. It is a false narrative that technical degrees lead to endless jobs. I have countless numbers of students who now own their own businesses. A nephew who didn't want to go to a 4 year college as he was a hands on kid. He now designs production lines for Merch, has an AAS degree from a community college in industrial maintenance. He was recently offered a job for $140K with unreal benefits. His skills are in high demand.
6. After my retirement I was asked to speak to students who were about to graduate from the technical college I ran. The room was full of diesel mechanics, welders, and others in the mechanical trades. I congratulated them on their success and then told them to look around the room and size themselves up against others in the room. I tell them the more valuable they are, with skills that go above their classmates, the more in demand and the more they will get paid. It is really that simple.
7. Teach your darn kids about money and how to manage it. Work PT, go to school, take a few classes as you can afford them. Sitting out a year rarely works, but for some it can. I saw too many sit out and wind up buying a car and getting more debt.
8. There are tons and I am not exaggerating, of company sponsored opportunities right now. A local company, Kubota, will pay people $17/hr to learn to weld plus room and board and guarantee a job for 20-$22 an hour depending on shift.
9. Teach your kids to earn what they receive, hard work never killed kids. Our kids raised 4H animals and were responsible for buying them and taking care of them.
10. I could go on but lastly you just have to teach kids the value of education and really spend some time figuring out what God has gifted them to do. At one HS I worked out I developed a program to help students determine what talents they were blessed with and how that translated to a job. Not just a minimum wage job though, a career. Too often, kids get sucked into something that mom and dad talked about or it sounds good but I firmly believe each person has abilities built into them for a special life and career.