As their parents’ investments shrink, today’s college-bound high school students are scaling back their fantasies of enrolling at prestigious, expensive schools.
This reality is manifesting itself in different ways: tension in guidance counselors’ offices when families meet to talk about choices, shock when students discover their parents can no longer afford their open-ended wish list, and guilt when they realize that attending their dream school may come at the cost of a younger sibling’s dreams or even their parents’ retirement plans.
The realization sometimes dawns when the students pick up unsolicited and coded remarks dropped by worried parents.
