The one who is in a much better position to do something like this has looked into doing just this and in the future may.
What I want to know is what if for whatever reason they aren't able to move out at 18. Is it too bad for you, figure it out? Or are they going to support (and I don't mean financially) their children until they are able to.
Unfortunately, I can answer this question from our own experience (YMMV). Call us derelict parents (and I'm sure some will
) but we were not hyper-focused on what path our DS would take from a young age. We just simply assumed that with all the basic advantages in place and him being a reasonably conventional person, things would naturally unfold in a certain way. During his last two years of high school he turned a corner away from academic diligence in favor of his social life and nebulous "hopes and dreams" that never solidified into goals. He set his mind on taking a "gap year", against our wishes and did not apply to any post-secondary directly out of Grade 12.
OK, so what to do then? We did what I imagine most parents would do - loosened control a little, did not coerce him into bending to our better judgement and decided to see where it went. We absolutely required him to get a job if he was to stay at home and he did so immediately, working away in a camp setting. It was a seasonal position that ended 5 months later and his next job was Christmas retail, which also ended. By this time, in a way none of us ever saw coming, our local economy crashed - and burned. The local unemployment rate skyrocketed. For the past 2-and-a-half years he has worked intermittently at random, mostly part-time jobs and has gone for months between them.
Could we have pushed him out to sink-or-swim? Yes. We decided against it as there was a 50/50 chance he would have sunk; ended up couch-surfing or worse and how would that have helped any of us? He is now "back on track" and has an entirely different perspective on life; his future is optimistic even though he surely won't be retiring a mortgage by age 30. FWIW, our current goal is to retire ours by the time he's that age. It's all good...end of the day we could second-guess ourselves to death but this has been our path and we stand by the decisions we've made.
According to CNBC the average debt a college graduate has is under $40,000.
That's really interesting - we always hear how shockingly expensive American post-secondary education is.
A full academic year at the school DS has been accepted to (university, not community college) is $6,600.00. With books, fees and whatnot, he will graduate in 4 years for about what you're quoting although not all of it will be debt. Good thing too because he currently plans a career in human services and the earning potential for those types of careers is not sky-high.