With everybody looking to cut down on expenses, I'm passing along a way that some Californian families could save a fortune on higher education. My wife heard this from a young Armenian-American lady. Armenians tend to to be high IQ but not as marinated in the Stuff White People Like verities as other high IQ groups, so they can bring a fresh perspective to working the status game.

This young woman dropped out of a private high school after tenth grade, took and passed the GED, and then enrolled at the local community college. Community Colleges tend to have a mediocre but decent learning environment because the students there want to be there. If they don't want to be there, they stop coming to class, so JuCos are not like high school where kids who don't want to be in high school disrupt classes.

She got her Associates of Arts degree by age 18, and then transferred to UCLA. (Although UCLA is very hard to get into as a freshman, it takes about 3000 to 4000 transfers per year, typically from California's community colleges. In fact, she was probably more likely to get into UCLA as a junior than as a freshman.) She was on track to get her prestigious UCLA degree at age 20, and then get a job.

So, she saved the last two years of Catholic high school tuition at say, $10k per year. JuCo tuition is minimal and she lived at home. Tuition and room and board at UCLA will probably cost her affluent parents $20k per year over two years. She can probably get a job paying $30k at age 20. Net cost at age 22 (including the $60k earned working) versus four years of private high school and four years of UCLA: zero for this route versus $100k for the traditional route.