The bill is far higher. It neglects 6 years of lost wages. Assuming she'd been waitressing for those six years, she's probably lost 6 x $20-30k = $120-180k, for a grand total of $270-330k. I would rather buy my daughter a house.
I'm only considering six Catholic colleges for my daughters. The purpose of their education will not be for job training, but rather as preparation for life.
One local college that I'm looking at, Magdalene College in NH, charges only $8k/year for tuition and $13k for room and board. Sure state colleges are cheaper, but I could sell my daughters into prostitution and make out on the deal. I'm not going to pay the state for that.
College is largely a farce.
My son's college so far has been "tuition free" and should be able to continue to be "tuition free."
He's enrolled in our county's dual enrollment program (he was homeschooled up until then, but the program is open to all students, private and public).
So during his high school years he's earned his AA (tuition is free, we had to pay for books, but if you're a public schooled kid, books are loaned free).
Then the State of Florida offers Bright Futures Scholarships if you make a certain grade on SAT or ACT tests, do some community service (75 hours), and plan to attend a state university (UF, FSU, USF, UCF, etc.)
I know in some state's they have similar programs, it sure makes it easy on the pocketbook.