If the cost of a four-year education seems too high, there's a way to earn a degree from a four-year college without attending for four years. More and more people choose to attend a two-year school (like a community college) for two years and then transfer to a four-year school. At graduation, the diploma lists the name of the four-year school – but the cost was significantly lower.

Attending a community college may not only save money. Some states have programs in place where community college graduates are automatically accepted to four-year state schools as long as they maintained a certain grade point average. If your child's high school GPA and SAT scores aren't what you might have hoped, he or she can still be accepted to and graduate from a prestigious four-year school – doing so may just require a short, and relatively inexpensive, educational detour.