How to Stay Flexible in Saving for Your Child's Future

The post-high school norm for millennials and their predecessors was to get accepted to a four-year college, physically move there, pay for books, pay for room and board, complete a degree program and get a job. Can't immediately come up with the $200,000+ all of that requires? Take out some loans.

Signs of that norm cracking, or at least twisting into a new shape, are becoming more and more clear. Prompted by fears of a student debt crisis -- and with fresh examples in their loan-laden forebears -- new college-age students are increasingly turning to alternatives to the established paradigm in order build a debt-free future.

A by TD Ameritrade made headlines with its finding that 1 in 5 young Americans (Generation Z, defined by the researchers as ages 15-21, and young millennials, ages 22-28) may opt out of college. A