College and the Middle Class

I could make this short and sweet and just say-forget about it! But if you have read other posts in my blog, you will know by now that I can't do that.
I can't say that when I graduated from high school that I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. Ah Contrare! I didn't have a clue. I knew I wasn't interested in college. I joined the ranks of the full time working world and carved my career plan for life. I didn't know it at the time but that is another story.
My son was lost and scared upon graduating high school. (Weren't we all?) We went to college fairs when he was in 7th or 8th grade, he was always interested in art. He decided to try a semester at community college, after graduation. It wasn't a good fit.
He started to puruse Art schools. Prefering a suburban area, we checked out the Art Institute of York, PA. We had compared several schools for programs and tuition costs, as well as pre-requisites for acceptance. To visit the school, I decided to follow the GPS directions. That will never happen again. The estimated 2 hour trip had crawled onto 3 hours in no time. We road on every off-the-beaten path that existed between Lancaster and York. We were placed behind several buggies, (cool, but I didn't want to be driving behind one) and even re-routed (due to either a fire or a truck driving into a house, I'm not clear on that one). I was suprised to see that AI of York, looked like a two story office building. It was very small. We came in the back way, past the Shoehouse, past several farms, by a row of townhouses and then entered a small industrial park. The program seemed to be a good fit. I wasn't sure about the rest of it. I did my financial aide preparation over the next week. I was disheartened to see that PA won't give NJ residents state aide and vice-versa. I am a middle class wage earner. I worked long and hard to repair my credit after a bad marriage. I worked even harder on earning more money. Sometimes, I worked several jobs at a time, mostly working from home. In the past two years, after taking a second job, I was doing better than I ever had. Of course, I sabatoged myself with that one. My parents didn't put me through college. It didn't work that way. I figured it out on my own over a span of 10 years, but at least I figured it out. Right? I thought he'd appreciate an education, if he had to work for it. We were not eligible for any free money and a very minimal Stafford loan. I was told there was a parent loan (PLUS) that I should apply for. They said everyone was being turned down for them, because of the economy, and if I wasn't approved, he would be entitled to more Stafford Loans. Of course, I was approved. Someone out there decided that I could afford to pay back $60,000 in principal and interest. I am supposed to come up with an extra $600 per month, if my son doesn't pay it. No wonder this economy is bad. They garnish your wages over these loans. Or, my son, would be paying more than that back over a 10 year period. With starting wages estimated to be about $35,000 per year, he would have to live with me until he was 30. So in conclusion, it seems to me that you have to be poverty stricken or extremely wealthy to go to college these days. If you're middle class, forget about it!