The US offers some tax advantaged accounts/bonds for education expenses. 529 Plans, for instance, aren't tax deferred, but the earnings aren't taxed if used for college. And a number of people can contribute besides just the parents.
I'm curious, what's the cost of college in the UK? In many states in the US it's become outrageous, and that's not even considering private universities. That might be a motivation here to establish college funds.
Tuition is currently around £9,000 per year. Living costs/accommodation is separate. It does depend on which part of the UK you are in though (I believe it's much cheaper in Scotland).
I suspect that's the reason then. In the US college used to be similarly affordable, but costs have gone up this past 10-15 years in most states. And in some states long before that. I had friends at Georgia Tech that came from Pennsylvania because out-of-state tuition at GT was cheaper than in-state in PA.
I was actually interested in going the college in the US at one point so I researched it a lot (and even spent two weeks visiting a few). If I remember right international students pay out of state tuition and the places I looked (UW campus') went from around $20,000 to $35,000. Not sure about in-state prices but they would have been much cheaper and quite comparable to the UK. Is it more a problem of students wanting to leave their state to study? If they stayed in state it seems like a college fund wouldn't be necessary (of course with exceptions such as the one you mentioned).
In general, yes. Students going out of state drives up their costs sometimes 2-3x higher than staying in-state. With some exceptions like PA where going out-of-state might be cheaper. I really only know PA as being particularly expensive because I knew so many people from there. I'm not sure what the current list of affordable states and unaffordable states are.
I'm curious, what's the cost of college in the UK? In many states in the US it's become outrageous, and that's not even considering private universities. That might be a motivation here to establish college funds.