GOT COLLEGE-BOUND kids? Make sure you and your children are on the right track financially—with these 10 questions:

Can you afford to help your kids with college costs? It’s important to talk to your teenagers early on about how much financial assistance you can offer—and that’s doubly true if they’ll need to shoulder much or all of the cost.
Will your family receive needs-based financial aid? Use the EFC calculator at CollegeBoard.org to figure out how much aid you might get.

SHORTLY BEFORE MY first child was born some two decades ago, I read a newspaper column urging parents to begin saving for college early in their children’s lives. Today, my son is not far from getting his bachelor’s degree in engineering, debt-free and (fingers crossed) with a bit in the bank for his master’s degree. My daughter starts college this fall and is on track for the same outcome.
I feel like we’ve been a real life middle-class experiment,