Quick story. A friend comes to me with a problem. The problem is this:

A student that comes from a semi-wealthy family is choosing to skip college because they think its unfair that they should be allowed to go to college (Mom and Dad are paying), when this student's friends cannot afford to go to college.

The student is basically feeling a level of guilt about their privilege- Which in a sense I understand. There is something to making your way in the world... particularly in the United States, where our rugged individualism can cause us to circumvent (normally) good choices.

And on the other hand- I'm not exactly blown away by the value proposition with the United States Higher Education system/ job market. We are effectively requiring a human to have $50K+ in debt to get a job because our k-12 education wouldn't even meet minimums in the 3rd world.

But that's not really the point in this particular situation. This student has an opportunity: to go to a good school for free, because mom and dad have the resources to send them... and they are interested in passing that up, because they didn't earn it themselves (and their peers can't afford it).

Frankly, I don't give a shit about the kid's feelings... we need more hardworking EDUCATED people not less.

The real tragedy is that the kid has to feel like this at all. That our education system, culture, etc are sooooooooo fucked up that a college degree is like this upper middle class thing. WTF???

So kid take mom and dad's money. The world of the future will be fucked up enough that your college degree still won't mean that much. But at least they won't spend that money on a boat or a big screen tv or something... and we (the people out in the rest of the world) will have at least one more educated human among us.

In regards to your friends- tell them to start with the bootstraps. Hustle trumps education every time. (they don't teach that in college).