You saw the headline. Room & Board up 5 percent, Forbes Magazine says ‘Buy real estate’. What? That’s right.

“Investing in your child’s education as well as your real estate portfolio can really pay off.” Anyone else find this article a little bit perverse?

For students, the mention of college conjures images of sprawling quads, crowded libraries and all-night parties. But for their parents, what comes to mind is likely a laundry list of expenses.

The good news is, college doesn’t need to be so hard on the wallet–at least when it comes to housing, an area that becomes more absurdly expensive with each passing year.

Total room-and-board expenses at private undergraduate colleges averaged $7,791 during the 2005-2006 school year, up 5% from the previous academic year, according to The College Board’s annual report on college pricing trends. But consider the alternative: investing in real estate. If done wisely, this nontraditional approach could not only save you the cost of college housing, it might even help you turn a profit.

Rather than shell out a small fortune for a ratty dorm room or an overpriced apartment, parents can build equity, generate cash flow and eventually benefit from real estate appreciation–assuming they are willing to be landlords and invest some cash up front.

“It’s a real win-win situation for people who have liquid assets,” says Jay McHugh, a broker/owner at RE/MAX International in Brookline, Mass. “Instead of paying Boston College or Harvard University $40,000-plus per year, and seeing $12,000 to $15,000 of room and board go out the window, you can easily pay $300,000 for a two-bedroom condo in the Alston-Brighton area.”

Here’s the key phrase: “It’s a real win-win situation for people who have liquid assets.”

This is a roundabout way of demonstrating that the rising cost of education is paralled by socioeconomic disparity among the college-bound… Being upper-middle-class, I’ll get the short end of the finanical aid stick. Too bad I can’t buy a townhouse to live in and rent out… good idea though, Forbes.