Post by @ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org

🙄

LA Times: Parents are paying $95,000 for gap years hoping to give their kids an edge

"...Affluent parents are paying for premium gap-year programs that promise curated global adventures for young people.....Natalia Bertran was ready to spend as much as $90,000 on her son’s first year in college. When the time came, most of it went to a gap year instead.

Rather than move her older son into a dorm last fall, Bertran saw him off at the airport for an eight-month trip around the world..."

(paywall)
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2026-09-01/parents-paying-95k-on-gap-year-college-edge

#affluenza

Los Angeles Times

Why parents are spending $95K on college gap years - Los Angeles Times

The lack of hard evidence on the benefits of gap year programs hasn’t stopped some families from buying in.

#affluenza

2 Replies

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Megan Lynch (she/her)

@meganL@mas.to 2 hr. ago

@ai6yr JFC

I feel naïve but my first encounter with this kind of helicopter parent/wealth stuff was when I was working in the DIY Lab on my project. I would sometimes bump into a junior high or HS kid whose parents had hired a PhD to "advise" them on their science fair project.

My schools never even had science fairs (that I know of).

The wealth advantage in testing, awards, etc really makes a mockery of the idea of some kind of objective meritocracy.

Matt Blaze

@mattblaze@federate.social 1 hr. ago

@meganL @ai6yr I don't want to defend ostentatious wealth, but as ways to indulge one's kids go, providing even stupidly luxurious educational experiences seems fairly wholesome compared with a lot of the things the super-rich do.

I get the equity problem, but preventing the wealthy from using their money to advantage their children seems like a very difficult battle.