A married couple filing jointly can deduct up to $6000 if they contribute that much and that is per student, per year.

In general, preparing a return as a married couple filing jointly may give you the lowest tax liability and the highest standard deduction, but to find the best scenario, it's wise to calculate your return both ways and see which is the most advantageous for you. For example, if both of your incomes are about the same, you may pay less in taxes by filing jointly, depending on the rest of your return.

That works out to $16 per student.

For someone already in college I think the best route would be to just try to minimize the amount of student loans that you acquire so that you're not faced with a large amount of debt when you graduate.

There are some other things you have to take into account with risk. If you only have two or three years before college starts you really don't want to take the risk of the market going down and possibly not having as much as you started with.

Start as soon as possible, the more time you have for the plan to work, the greater advantage you'll have for growth.