College: my parents did (tuition and fees, campus housing, $1,000 a semester for books and incidentals). I worked during the breaks, but mostly for fun money.
Grad school: my department paid for my tuition, since I was teaching; I paid for books, student fees, and pretty much everything else out of my teaching stipend, although my parents sent me money now and again.
If I have children, I hope to be able to pay their way through school, although realistically, I may not be able to afford it (unless they want to go to the same school where I teach, which may well be the last thing they want!) In general, I think it’s best if students don’t have to work during the semester; going to college is a full-time job in itself if you’re doing it properly, and it should be the student’s primary responsibility.
I teach at a public university that serves mostly first-generation, working-class students; most of them work long hours because they have to. It’s not ideal. It means that many of them can’t benefit from professors’ office hours, academic support services, or the many cultural opportunities the university offers because they’re always working when they’re not in class, and they often can’t spend an appropriate amount of time on their coursework (a three-hour-a-week class should translate to six to nine hours of work time outside of the classroom, but you can’t do that if you’re working thirty hours a week). But still, the juggling act is better than not being able to go to college at all.