Should parents be responsible for paying for their children’s college tuition?

Read the following excerpts and consider the following question, then write a properly formatted five-paragraph academic essay in response:

Education is an investment in your children’s future, and by extension in your own. It shouldn’t end in high school. Parents should pay their children’s college tuition if they can, even if that means borrowing money or dipping into retirement savings. For starters, when parents pay they send a strong message to their children: College matters. This is important to you and to us. I’m not suggesting this is a free ride for kids. To that end, there’s another message parents need to send: I pay—and you owe me hard work for a good college education.
Some parents consider college education as the equivalent of a new sports car. Let my son or daughter earn it, they say; we don’t want to spoil them. But college education is an investment, not luxury consumption. And it’s an investment that most children aren’t in a position to make without taking on punishing debt—and that some can’t ever manage.
– by Meir Statman

Some say paying for their own education puts an unfair burden on college students, many of whom graduate with huge debt. But it doesn’t have to be that way. If students are responsible for paying the bill, they will become smarter consumers. They will choose less extravagant programs, perhaps opting for community college first instead of a four-year university, or combining work with study. They will be likely to choose more-practical majors, perhaps forgoing that art history degree.