Many college-bound high school students have their eye on attending expensive private colleges, and with their beautiful campuses, air conditioned dorms and strong brand names, it's easy to understand why. But recent action in the stock market and credit markets threatens those plans. The portfolios that were going to pay for college are down more than 40% so far this year, and tightness in the credit markets is making loans harder to come by.

The USA Today reports that many families are responding by taking a harder look at public colleges. New York's most selective public institution, Binghamton University, has seen its applications rise by 50%.

If you're the parent of a high school junior or senior, and your last name isn't Gates of Buffett, you should absolutely be steering your child to a more affordable college. Here's why: If junior heads off to a state university and does well, he can always transfer to a first-tier college after sophomore year. The diploma will come from the university where he graduates. But if he heads off to a $40,000 per year college and you run out of money before his senior year -- and credit markets remain tight so you can't get more loans -- he could be forced to transfer to a less prestigious school, graduating with that diploma. The huge expenditures of the first few years will have been for nothing. With student loans drying up, many students are finding themselves in exactly this situation.

Also, with the job outlook looking bleak for future graduates, it's also a good time to be conservative about college financing. In a weak job market, a few hundred dollars per month in student loan payments can add to the stress of entering the labor market for the first time. Even if you can get tens of thousands in loans to attend a private college, it's still probably a bad idea.

AOL Money & Finance writer and editor Zac Bissonnette is a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and an expert on getting a great education without going broke. Got a college question? Leave a comment and he'll get back to you!

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AOL Money & Finance writer and editor Zac Bissonnette is a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and an expert on getting a great education without going broke. Got a college question? Leave a comment and he'll get back to you!

Last month I wrote about my strategy of buying old, theoretically outdated, editions of textbooks for my classes, betting that they would be good enough to get me on the Dean's List at the cost of 1 penny per book.

But most students will head to the college bookstore to shell out hundreds of dollars for books that may only be used tangentially in their classes. However I've been told that some professors, fancying themselves socially responsible, have made the books for their classes available at off-campus independent bookstores rather than the college store, forcing students to travel to get their supplies and, in all probability, pay more than they would have to because independent shops lack the scale and purchasing power of the largest university in the state.

I'm not unsympathetic to the professor's case -- I try to shop locally too -- but here's the thing: if they want to support local businesses, they should do so with their own money, not finance their agendas with the wallets of students who are facing ever-increasing tuition and fees. It's very easy to be generous with other people's money: maybe those tenured professors should just buy the books for the students themselves, and donate some money to the struggling independents. I'd have a lot more respect for that.

One of the most obvious ways to save money on college is to go to a public college. But which one? Kiplinger's recently released its list of the 100 best value values in public colleges, based on average SAT/ACT scores for incoming freshman, the admission rate, the graduation rate, costs, percentage of costs covered by financial aid, and the average debt at graduation.

With about 75% of states boasting at least one college on the list, every college-bound high school student should take a look -- In-state students nearly always pay less.

If you're looking to save more money, one increasingly popular approach is the 2 and 2 method: Doing the first 2 years at a local community college and then transferring to earn a diploma from a 4-year college.

How much can you save? My local community college, Cape Cod Community College, shows that by doing the first 2 years at a community college and then the next 2 at a state college, you can spend a total of $18,556 on undergrad. That's a savings of more than $110 thousand versus doing 4 years at a private college!

Saving money on college gives you flexibility. You'll be able to go to grad school if you choose, and you'll be able to take the job of your dreams, not the one that pays enough to cover your student loans.