It's really sort of an interesting debacle. There's opportunities out there for both privileged and underprivileged families but often times the underprivileged are left completely oblivious while the privileged take full advantage. When you're rich, you're not just monetarily wealthy. You gain a lot of social and cultural capital that helps you maintain your wealth and assets, and that's something that frankly many poor people just don't get the opportunity to learn about. Believe it or not, most wealthy people who have been wealthy for a while are very good at knowing what helps them remain wealthy. In contrast, many underprivileged families don't know much about saving money at all. There's a great book that goes into a lot of detail about this. It's called the Meritocracy Myth. http://www.amazon.com/Meritocracy-Myth-Stephen-J-McNamee/dp/...

Don't confuse stupidity and ignorance. This is an example of the latter. There are a ton of built-in cultural assumptions to the college admissions process, and the culture in question is college. Expecting people with no college experience to know about it without educating them is no more sensible than expecting them to know calculus when nobody taught it to them.

Sounds like a "how this stuff works" seminar or class could have been really valuable. I know I could have benefitted greatly when I was nearing my high school graduation, at least if I could have actually been convinced to pay attention and care.