You're right, DivaJen. 529 plans are considered parents' savings, so they don't have a huge impact on financial aid eligbility. I think prepaid tuition 529s, though, do have a pretty big impact, according to pfblog's in-depth discussion of college savins options:
http://www.pfblog.com/archives/1427_...contents.shtml
We have a Pennsylvania prepaid tuition plan (altho I wish I hadn't opened it now that I know about impact on financial aid) , and a regular Pennsylvania 529 plan. Unfortunately there are no state tax benefits in PA. Also, I have a Upromise account, but at the rate I'm going it will be a while before there's enough earnings in there to make it worth it to open a Upromise-linked 529 plan. When I do, I'll probably go with Iowa's plan, which is highly rated.
We're only putting away $25/month for college right now, because we're very far from being able to max our retirement contributions. I'm hoping to take some of the burden of paying for college (vague goal is to be able to pay for 1-2 years), but expect that we'll have to do a combination of parent loans, student loans, financial aid, etc. Perhaps the grandparents will be able to help out but I"m not counting on it. My son is only 20 mo, tho, so I'm not really sure what our financial situation will be.