If you subtract a base tuition of $35,000 from that, you're left with $15,000 per year as total living expenses. That's barely over $1200, and has to cover not only rent and food, but textbooks, computers, and other costs of campus life. Even assuming your kid doesn't do much partying, or need access to a car, $15k is hardly a lavish annual budget.
I'm not saying that private schools make sense a strict cost/benefit level; if you read my other posts in this thread, you'll see that I'm nearly as dubious as the author of the original article about the real economic benefits of a four-year degree. I just don't think that $200k is an unusually high total cost for four years of college.
What people don't understand is that there is SO, SO MUCH MONEY out there!!! You just have to find it!!! There are scholarship, grants, loans, work study, tuition waivers, in all shapes, sizes or flavors. If you really, truly want to go to college, then money should NOT be your impediment.
He said 200 - 400k which IMO is not unreasonable at the high end. Tuition @ $44 per student + living expenses @ 15k/year + lost wages @ 21k / year = 80k / year * 5 years = 400k.
IMO the problem is at the low end if you take 3 years to get out of a state school with a free ride you are only talking about (10k living expenses – free room and board + 21k lost wages) * 3 = ~93k.
I guarantee you, if I were only forgoing a wage of 21k/year, I'd finish school in a heartbeat!
The problem for a lot of people on this forum might be that they can no longer justify college economically: it won't improve your earnings if you're already making a good living, so it becomes more of a wouldn't-it-be-nice sort of thing, an expensive recreational activity to maybe finish someday after retirement.
Is college right for everyone? No, and on both sides of the equation. A very small group of people are too smart for it, get too constrained by it, etc. There is a much larger group of people who are not smart enough for it, or don't work hard enough to get there. For everyone else, it makes sense. To say that you won't make up the money (and he says 200,000 - 400,000, that is a 50,000 to 100,000 a year college! There are only about dozen that expensive! I'm in one of the top 20 in the country and it would cost me 120,000 for 4 years coming from out of state, if not for a scholarship), is ludicrous. I'm going to work from the age of 25 to the age of 65 unless I do something spectacular and can retire early, which MOST PEOPLE DON'T. So for most people it is 120,000 divided by 40 years, or $3,000 a year more they would have to make in order for it to be worth it, obviously most college grads are better off money wise if they go. And staying in state is even cheaper. His point is kind of ridiculous, just because he didn't like college, doesn't mean that he should recommend against it. I sure feel bad for his kids who will be trying to make it big on their new version of MySpace when all their friends graduate and start making real money.