Is the whole go to college message overdone, questions the WSJ

I agree with the journal on this one, at least partially. Here is my thought: You should not have to take massive loans to go to college or to send your kids to college. I don't know what to say though. Assuming a 12% rate of inflation, for a child born in 2011 going to UT Austin in 2029, I would need to invest at least $2,830.72 per month to reach the goal with a 95% chance of success. 

Assumptions:

Based on your selection of Portfolio 2027

A $656,021.00 investment goal

A $.00 one time lump sum payment

An 95% success rate

Now imagine you are a 26-year-old who puts away five thousand dollars per year into his IRA. $5000 per year for twenty years compounded annually at six percent is $183,900. The cost to attend UT Austin for fall 2013 is $5,107 for the school of engineering. Let's round it up to $5,500 to allow some incidental cost. That's $11,000 per year. Now, if you plan on having a kid four years from now in 2017, they'd want to college in eighteen years, that is beginning 2035. Assuming a modest six percent hike in prices, you'd need about $173,405.02 for tuition. So basically, if you put away as much for your kid as much as you will for your IRA, you will at least be able to cover his tuition to go to a state school. 

Would you spend six thousand dollars for a chance to prolong your dog's life by a year?

I'm sorry but, I think it's disgusting to even consider spending $6000 to save the life of a pet when there are children all around the world (including many parts of the USA) who need life-saving medical treatments or operations but aren't getting them because their parents lack $6000 or less to pay for it. Also, there are thousands of puppies in shelter all over America that are euthanized every day simply because they have no one to care for them! If you are a dog-lover, make sure your elderly dog dies peacefully and then move on. We all have to go sometime. 

By the way, according to Wikipedia, the average life expectacy of a bichon frize in the USA or Canada "12 to 13 year"s - not 16 years, as stated in the opening sentance. No dog brred has as an average life expectancy of 16 yrs. So, please, get some perspective! Are you keeping your old dog alive for his sake or simply because you are incapable of dealing with the inevitable? If you have an extra $6000 burning a hole in your pocket, then donate it in memory of your beloved pet to a child who needs an operation or to an animal shelter. Make the remaining time your dog has left comfortable and happy and then, give your love to a new pet that is in need of some.

Tom from Boston, MA wrote this comment. What sticks to me is this sentence in particular: "Are you keeping your old dog alive for his sake or simply because you are incapable of dealing with the inevitable?" I would go a step further and say this should apply to me as well. An exercise in imagination: If I have a terminal illness and it costs $600k to *maybe* lengthen my life by six to eight months at the most with me being bedridden the whole six months, it makes absolute sense for you to let go of me and save yourself from spending that $600k that you probably don't have. What if I chicken out though? Do I have a right to a surgical procedure when I am already comatose and there is little to none chance that I will get out of the coma even if the surgery succeeds? Would it be better to let me die? Perhaps that would save a little burden for the workers in the form a slightly smaller increase in their health insurance premiums.

Expat in Germany highlights something I didn't care to elaborate:

To all the people who say that "pets are also family," I think that misses the point. We need to make end-of-life decisions for our human family too, and these are typically based on quality of life, not cost. When the outcome is uncertain and the ailing person or pet is old, the decision is heart-wrenching either way.

When I compared the end-of-life cases for a dog with the end-of-life case for myself, I was aware of the same thing. I remember talking to a radiologist on a flight from LGA to DCA in June last year, I got to talk to a very nice radiologist who gave me a little fact nugget. A huge chunk of healthcare costs for patients is spent in their last six months of life. If we could determine when someone is about to die and cut off medical expenses six months prior (letting them go a little early), we could save quite a bit of money. Problem is, we cannot look into a crystal ball and say with a good confidence whether recovery will or will not happen. What do we do? As family, we cling to even the weakest thread of hope that a surgeon gives us, even fishing for it when the doctor tries to steer us to not be hopeful. Well, if this procedure has helped five people in the last five hundred...