My thoughts are simple: Give them the tools they need to suceeed, the basics like food, shelter and education. Encourage higher learning and if they aspire to higher education, help them as best you can. But I would never let them get between my wife and I. That is #1, Mom and Dad are a unit, not individual components.
2 of our 3 kids have degrees, one uses her degree and is doing well, the other with the degree is free spirited and conemplating buying a house now. I could help him, but am currently on the sideline letting him learn about the real world. He is finding that his choices to be unconventional have consequences. The other is struggling and finding that dropping out of school (against our wishes) also has consequences. We help when they absolutely need it, but do not give regular financial support, but are always available for moral support or to go through "what ifs" when they run into problems.
We were raised with similar rules, I am middle of 5, my wife is middle child of 15 (thats not a typo). Both sets of parent gave us as much encouragement and guidance as possible and offerred higher education (up to a certain point) to allow us to excel, but we were not given any financial assistance outside of help with college. I didn't see Disney till I was in my 30's and only recently started to take trips outside of the country now that the kids are grown up.
Bottom line, we are doing what our parents did, and we have mixed results, being a parent is tough as hell, but sometimes the kid has to learn on his own.