T. Rowe Price has an
interesting calculator for what expected college costs will be when your kids reach college age. They take current costs for each school, and you get to choose what you expect inflation to be.
According to their calculator with an assumed 7% inflation rate (who knows if that's a correct assumption?) our in-state university will cost $119,000 for my daughter. If she gets into MIT (just picking at random here) it will cost $345,000. This is for all four years. Sending both my kids to college will cost between $200K and $800K depending on the school and inflation between now and then. Ugh.