Step one - have them attend a community college for the first two years then transfer to a state school.
Step two - have them live at home
$75k should be enough.
We're targeting $100k/kid in 529's. (We have a separate income stream than our retirement that funds the 529's. So 529's are "off budget")
Another thought - have the kid work during the summer to pay for books and spending money.
Emphasis added. I couln't agree more with this statement. College is no more than an investment, and with today's outlandish tuition costs, I believe it's imperative to obtain the highest ROI.
Today, employers use an undergraduate degree as a minimum qualification in many jobs. They don't care where the degree came from, they just want the degree (unless you work in education, perhaps, where they ogle name brand schools and get the equivalent of an orgasm from calling people with a PhD "Dr."). At the undergraduate level, a degree from an ivy league school may win some additional points, and even then, only in some jobs.
Even a graduate degree should be looked upon as an investment, foregoing the overpriced private schools. Here again, for many positions, with not too many exceptions (perhaps so-called "leadership" positions, and even here there are many exceptions), employers do not care where the degree came from, as long as you have the degree.
Higher education is far beyond ripe for disruption. Sad to say, the product you are buying is a poor mismatch for the skills needed in the work world today and in the future. Higher education may teach people to think, and perhaps improve their writing/reporting skills, but too many books have been written detailing the failures of higher ed, providing suggested solutions, none of which have been or will be acted upon as long as no viable alternative exists.
I, too, would not spend over $75K.