Sure. But my excuse for denying my children would be that I also struggled at their age—zero handouts from either parent.

But I also think that attitude is a load of shit.

Early on in the 1980's I went to a community college to get the first couple of years of college out of the way. I sublet a room from a single woman (probably her landlord had no idea) and I rode a 10-speed bike between a pizza restaurant I worked at and the community college (yeah, sucked in the Kansas winter-time).

Later, at a university, I was able to work as a dishwasher at a dorm and pay my way through college.

But there's probably no way my kids can do the same 40 years later.

It would be, to me, a tragedy if our kids only finally "make it" when their parents die and all our assets are cashed in and divided among them. For myself, this would have come at a time when I didn't need the windfall.

I'd rather help them out now as they are trying to climb the ladder to homeowner, etc.

(It sure would have been nice if one of my parents could have forked over the cash to buy me that Macintosh Plus back in 1986. Alas, a student loan I was nervous to apply for did the trick.)

In the early 2000s I saw a gubernatorial candidate talking to an audience of over achieving high school students and when asked about what he would do to make college more affordable. He told a story about how he waited tables to pay for college.

Totally not on his radar: changes in tuition over time, portion of budgets of public colleges that were coming from state funds (his tuition wasn't free but was close), vs changes in median hourly wages over the same period.

Very clearly on his radar: those students were not gonna donate to anyone's campaign regardless of what he said.