Newbies, where should you spend your time . . . and money?

[Ken M.]

"I heard something to the effect of: you can re-finance that and take the built in equity and use that cash for college?"

Pretend you don't have any money. 

You are asking the bank to borrow some money from them, say $100,000. They don't know you. They don't know if you will pay them back. To get over this impasse, you say "I know, I will pledge my house to you if I don't pay you back". They say, "well, if we lend him $100,000 and he doesn't pay us back we can sell his $500,000 house and we don't lose anything, plus we make a ton of money." (It's called interest & foreclosure)

They write up agreements called a "Note" (Terms of the loan) and a Deed of Trust or Mortgage (what to do if you don't pay when due). When you sign, you are given the $100,000 and they can foreclose if you don't pay them back on time. You can use the $100,000 to send your daughter to college for a totally useless degree in Psychology or Art History and you feel good about it.

As long as you make the payments, usually for the next 30 years, you keep the house, but now you are a slave to the lender (the bank). 

Your life's workforce (time, effort, energy and intellect as denominated in money) go to the bank (for the next 30 years) to keep them from foreclosing and taking your asset, your house. But, you feel good about it.

It's far less risky and builds character, not to borrow to go to college, 

but to just work your way through college, like I did. IMHO. or nowadays, better yet, don't go to college. It's full of a lot of tripe (
Tripe is the digestive system of ruminants prepared as edible offal.

Anyway, once you've built up your investing properties, you can go to college and take anything you want to take. Basket weaving 101 is a favorite.