His youngest, 16-year-old Monica, is now a junior in high school and is already being courted by a variety of public and private universities, but Bushman says she's likely to start at Fullerton College for obvious reasons.

"We looked for financial aid early on with my son, but we were right in the middle and there just wasn't much available for us," Bushman says. "But this worked out really well. They didn't have any trouble transferring into four-year universities, and they got all their undergraduate requirements out of the way."

Other middle-income parents may want to take note. Although it's trendy to warn that college costs are soaring much faster than the rate of inflation and that higher education could cost $100,000 or more per child, many families are finding ways to get great schooling at a fraction of the cost.

Sending the kids to community college for the first two years is just one of several options. Others include shunning private schools for considerably less expensive state universities, encouraging your kids to take advanced placement classes in high school to earn college credits, and opting for local schools so the kids can live at home.

Incidentally, experts debunk the notion that your child will be deprived of a great education or future job opportunities by starting at a community college or bypassing the Ivy League for state universities.

Indeed, not only can students inexpensively knock off many of their general education requirements at community colleges, they can also boost their chances of being accepted at a prestigious four-year university by attending a two-year college, counselors maintain.

That's because colleges are partially ranked based on their graduation rate, says Jack Joyce, director of guidance services at the College Board in New York. Students who have successfully completed two years of community college are much more likely to finish a four-year program, he says. As a result, some colleges that rejected a high school senior will throw open their doors to that same student when he or she applies after finishing two years at a community college with decent grades. Increasingly, top-notch state universities also are forging alliances with local community colleges in which they agree to give two-year transferees priority at admission, he adds.

Meanwhile, a recent study indicates that it may not be the Ivy League school, but the child, that determines success and earnings potential. The study, co-authored by Princeton economist Alan Krueger, looked at kids who were accepted by Ivy League schools over a 20-year period and found that the earnings of kids who were accepted by the Ivy League but attended non-Ivy League schools were nearly identical to the earnings of those who did attend Ivy League colleges such as Yale, Harvard and Princeton.

That's important to know. Whereas an Ivy League school will cost upward of $100,000 for four years, there are top-notch public institutions that are downright affordable.

For instance, the annual cost of tuition and fees at Cal State Northridge amounts to less than $2,000 a year--about what it costs to send a 10-year-old to summer camp. Tuition at the spectrum of prestigious University of California campuses from UC Berkeley to UCLA runs between $3,800 and $4,300 annually for California residents, according to the College Board's "College Cost and Financial Aid Handbook 2000."

That relatively low cost is not unusual for in-state tuition at public universities. Texas Tech University in Lubbock charges residents just $2,800 per year. Houston-based Texas Southern charges just $1,264. Mansfield University of Pennsylvania's in-state tuition is $4,510. The University of New Mexico in Albuquerque charges $2,242. Indiana's Purdue University costs about $3,500.

Families on a budget should also realize that going local is far more cost-effective than going away. The College Board estimates that living on campus costs anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 annually, depending on the school. Naturally, having a student at home costs something, but it's nowhere near as much. Furthermore, it's an expense that most parents are well used to paying.

Another way to budget: Have your student take advanced placement classes. Ambitious high school students can often knock off college credits by taking these courses and passing a test. In some cases, that can reduce either the number of units the student needs to complete in college, or reduce the amount of time that he must spend there.

Although it's still unusual, some kids can graduate with a four-year degree in three or three-and-a-half years, thanks to AP credit.

"For some reason, people think that when it comes to college, less expensive is not good," says Betty L. Davis, assistant dean of financial aid at the Community College of Allegheny County in Pennsylvania. "But who among us would not buy something on sale? We all have the same curriculum. We use the same books. We sometimes even share instructors. We're simply cheaper."