We were blessed to have kids who went to college with a truly meaningful purpose. Well, one was possibly looking for a spouse but ended up majoring in something that she will use and pay-forward all of her life. The 2nd went to a "trade school" which he loved and learned about "materials," he is an engineer, majored in metallurgy and an officer in the Navy where he has taught (must have the "teaching genes" of me and his dad) and then did a 3 year stint at MIT earning 2 masters' degrees (sp?), both related to his work (e.g. Naval Architecture which is good because he basically builds boats). The 3rd is autistic and will never ever worry about where his next meal is coming from or if/when his loving parents/friends will disappear. While some things might not register with him, the school system failed him, and therefore so did I, by not teaching him at home but his temper with autism was beyond my ability to handle plus I needed to work to supplement our income. I have pulled the 2 older ones out of schools they were in because of the different schools' politics but sadly, did not home school because I worked to help pay the basics.

I know what you will say "you could have made it work." But we were in an unpredictable circumstance where someone was causing our finances to suffer (which I cannot explain).