"If you want to get an earful about paying for college, listen to parents from states where tuition and fees have skyrocketed in the last five years. In Arizona, for example, parents have seen a 77 percent increase in costs. In Georgia, it's 75 percent, and in Washington state, 70 percent."

"Even in Oklahoma, where tuition increases have been among the lowest in the nation, parents are dismayed. In Stillwater, Okla., Jeffery Corbett's daughter is attending community college. Corbett, a fundraiser for a nonprofit, says a high school diploma just won't get you very far. And he knows; he doesn't have a college degree."

"'I think about it all the time, because I realize [how] it has limited me, by not having that piece of paper,' he says."