A Silicon Valley parent worth $7 million just asked the internet whether they should make their teenager take out student loans to "learn the value of money."
The responses were swift and brutal. "You're going to screw over your kid because of some bootstrap fantasy," one commenter fired back. Another parent revealed they'd already stashed $300k in their kindergartener's college fund.
Welcome to American College Consultancies. Where the world’s wealthiest families gather to debate the one purchase they'll never haggle over: their children's education.
The $800 billion blind spot
These are people who optimize everything. They'll spend hours researching the best credit card rewards program or debate whether a Tesla Model S has better total cost of ownership than a BMW. But when it comes to college? Logic goes out the window.
The numbers are staggering. Americans hold over $800 billion in 529 college savings plans, with the average account balance hitting $26k. But among high-net-worth families, those numbers explode. One member casually mentioned having $170k saved for their kindergartener. Another has multiple grandchildren with accounts approaching $300k each.
"I work too many damn hours to make this money, I can't not pass this blessing on," wrote one verified member of the community.
The rich parent penalty
Here's what most people don't realize: America's financial aid system has created a wealth trap. Once your family income crosses certain thresholds, your kids become ineligible for virtually all need-based aid. No grants. No subsidized loans. Sometimes banks won't even offer private loans without parental co-signing.
"If you are rich and don't help your kids with college, you are kinda screwing them," explained one commenter. "Society has set things up with the expectation that rich parents are going to pay."
It's a system that forces wealthy parents into a corner. Pay full price, or watch your child get shut out of opportunities available to their peers.
The psychology of parental guilt
But there's something deeper happening here than just navigating financial aid formulas. These parents are grappling with a fundamental tension between their values and their bank accounts.
Take the original poster, a self-made Silicon Valley success story who attended "fairly basic California state schools." They want to help their kids but worry about creating entitled brats who'll blow half a million studying "gender studies or anthropology in NYC."
The responses revealed a community wrestling with the same anxiety. How do you give your children advantages without ruining them?
"Money doesn't spoil, shitty upbringing does," one parent wrote, capturing the prevailing wisdom. The consensus: fund the education, but structure everything else to build character.
The $529 industrial complex
This parental angst has created a massive industry. The 529 college savings plan market has exploded from practically nothing in the 1990s to an $800 billion juggernaut today.
Financial advisors have learned to tap into wealthy parents' deepest fears. One member described their strategy: "Put 5 years worth of gifts into the 529 at birth and never think about it again." By kindergarten, their child had $300k growing tax-free.
The beauty of 529 plans for wealthy families isn't just the tax benefits—it's the psychological relief. Set it and forget it. No more agonizing over whether you're spending too much or too little.
The optimization paradox
What makes this particularly fascinating is how it contradicts everything else about wealthy consumer behavior. These are people who'll negotiate every other major purchase, research every investment, and optimize every tax strategy.
But when it comes to education, optimization feels somehow... wrong. Immoral, even.
"Being able to give my children advantages in life—like a good education with no student loans—is one of the main reasons I worked my ass off to become fat," one parent explained.
It's not that they can't do the math. A finance degree from a state school probably offers better ROI than an art history degree from Columbia. But framing your child's future in terms of return on investment feels gross to most parents.
The real ROI
Perhaps these parents are optimizing for something that can't be measured in spreadsheets: peace of mind.
One commenter who graduated debt-free shared their perspective: "10 years after college, I retired my parents and moved them into my house." Maybe the real return isn't financial—it's knowing you gave your kids the freedom to choose purpose over paycheck.
As one member put it: "We're rich. The entire point of getting here was to not have to be a cog in the capitalist machine."
In a world where everything has a price, these parents have found the one thing money truly can't buy: the certainty that they did right by their children.