[quote=Hobie]I did forget about how competitive the parents become with bragging rights. They peacock when kid is accepted to a private and hold there head low when kid is going to a community college. Well, some of them..[/quote]

Funny you should say that. I got a different version of that story among some Asian parents.

Some Asian parents peacock when their kids gets into a prestigeous college to for pre med studies. Some Asian parents hold their head low when their kids go to a community college.

4 years later, some of the Asian parent peacocks quickly lose their feathers after spending close to $300k for that prestigeous college only for the kid to transfer out of a medical program into a law program and than into some art history program and graduate with a BA degree in some far off degree that lands them a job at Starbucks in some metro city and have to help subsidize their rent living there.

Meanwhile, those low head hanging parents who sent their kids to a JC start to peek up their heads because for the first 2 years, they saved a shitload of money while their kid got their act together and figured out what they wanted to do, applied for and transferred to a good state school, and completed their technical degree in engineering, software or nursing, or some other high demand profession that pays well, saved their kids a boatload of money so kids weren’t saddled with a boatload of debt, and were financially self sufficient much more earlier than those directionless kid that went to a prestigeous 4 year private school on the east coast.

I had a niece that did just that. 4 years of prestigeous school, 2 years into a medical program, and then one day “I really don’t want to do this….$400-500k later” and she isn’t alone.