My son went to an affordable state school in Missoula, Mont., for two years before he was accepted to the New School of Jazz in New York. I'm a special-education teacher and my husband is an independent carpenter. We scrambled to figure out how to make this dream come true for him.

My mom had just died, so we sold our house and moved in with my stepdad. We used the proceeds and savings to pay for the first year's tuition and dorm fees, with more help from my stepdad, father-in-law and stepmom, who just a few years earlier had helped us pay off our own consolidated federal school loans. It was incredibly humbling, as very grown adults, to depend on our parents for this type of financial aid, but we are now closer than ever as a family. We are so lucky.

Stacey Hargesheimer, 50 Missoula, Mont.