The recession is making it hard for parents to find the money to send their kids to college, but it is also taking chunks out of college endowments.

The cost of sending a kid to college is going up. A recent report by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education said it could soon be out of reachof most families.

"Times are tough right now. People are having a hard time paying their bills paying their mortgage so there is not a lot of extra money in the household budget to pay for college right now," said Nan Worsawich with Duval County Schools.

She helps students find "free money" so that they can go to school. They brought in Florida A&M on Thursday and will bring in other colleges next year.

"We have also had several different college fairs just for informational purposes this fall," Worsawich said.

She said that there is still money out there for student who start looking early.

But maybe not for long as colleges lose their endowments in the market.

Derek Hall with Jacksonville University says they lost about 2-percent of their 60-million dollar endowment last year. He says they are well diversified but can't avoid the national downturn.

"Last year we were down 2 or 3 percent. But we were still, with that low return, we were still doing better then a lot of institutions in a down market," Hall said.

He said that they pay for part of their operational budget of the interest from the endowment, but only about 5%. Still they are bracing for bigger losses this year and have made budget cuts to prepare. He would not predict how much they think they will lose, but says they are expecting to lose money.