This is an interesting article:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/why-do-poor-people-waste-money-on-luxury-goods
Especially considering many community colleges including most of the ones in my area of NYC tend to focus their missions on getting academically average at best or worse, remedial students up to speed rather than provide the academic rigor and advanced courses a bright kid who has earned his/her admission to one or more respectable/elite colleges.
Even some directional 4-year colleges or public college systems whose missions were focused towards the getting the remedial/academically average student up to speed wouldn’t serve that exceptionally bright kid very well.
Knew several HS classmates who lived this firsthand either due to graduating at the very bottom of my public magnet HS class in terms of HS GPA or having parents who had the mentality that “all colleges are the same”. This meant they were forced to attend public colleges where they were academically underwhelmed* and any efforts to try taking more advanced courses were obstructed by the public colleges’ red tape. Once they transferred to elite colleges like Columbia, Reed, or CMU(CS/engineering), they finally found a college educational environment more suitable in terms of academic rigor/pacing and they ended up excelling to graduation from their new institutions.