Sucks.... but hey, my high school was so competitive the year I graduated that even though I would have been valedictorian any of the previous ten years, I graduated 11th in my class...

And half the people in the top ten ahead of me went to the same school in-state and picked off all the local and business scholarships leaving me with a whopping.... 2k in scholarships!

And my family is firmly middle class, and had about enough to help pay for a bit of the upfront tuition costs/dorm expenses, leaving me about 30-40k in student loans when all was said and done. Although thank god that was a number of years ago now... at current tuition rates my loans would have been more like 65k.

I still got off a LOT better on student loans than a lot of people I know.

Yes, but you still don't lose anything until you sell. So, unless the company that the stocks are in are is in danger of going under, there's no need to sell; you can at least sell them at less of a loss if you wait.

My suggestion is try for scholorship and use Fed loans and parenht plus. You can make it on those. Second, you can do monthly payment plans at most Uni. This means you don't have to pay upfront, you can pay monthly (be much easier on your parents.) Keep thye money in the stockmarket for now that you were going to use, selling it now will only lock in your losses. When the market recovers in a few years, take the money out if you want and use it to help pay off you and your parents loans. Or you could keep it in for much later if your parents want, its just up to you and them. You'll make it through. Worst case scenario is do a CC for 2 years then transfer.

Depending on when it was invested, it may have been the smart thing to do. If his parents invested that money when he was born, it should have had over 15 years to mature and grow... But they should have realized that the smart thing to do is to pull that money out of the market a few years before he's ready for school.

Let it grow with the market but when the time nears to use that money, pull it out and keep it in a conventional bank for reasons just like what happened to the OP.

Yeah, I agree. I lost a few hundred in my 401K and just said 'I can do better myself.' I pulled out my loot - and now, my friends are telling me they lost thousands in their accounts. I tell you - it's risky biz all the way around.

It sucks, man. Sorry to hear that.

Just get financial aid. Nothing wrong with that at all.