Houston Family's College Bill: $1.5M

Good thing he wrote a bestseller. Houston dad Marc Ostrofsky has tallied up his family's college costs, and "we’re looking at roughly $60,000 to $70,000 per child per year," he tells KHOU. "A total of about $1.5 million after tax dollars." Ostrofsky has five daughters and stepdaughters; the oldest just graduated Berklee School of Music, while the youngest is about to start at Boston University.

There's a pair of twins, one of whom is graduating from Duke while the other graduates from Washington University in St. Louis. And there's one more at the University of Denver. "I think in the future it’s going to be different. I don’t think a lot of people are going to play that game," says Ostrofsky, an online entrepreneur and author of Get Rich Click! He expects a combination of online and traditional classes to take over. Should kids stay in school? "Be careful what you wish for," he says. (More Houston stories.)