Good points. There's definitely a "class mentality" difference. In my case, it was "engineering school is your only way out of this hole, kid. Don't fuck it up!" It also helped that I, by some miracle, had tiger parents (although not Asian). For Tommy Rockefeller III in his Connecticut private school, it's "Go study whatever you want--it doesn't matter. You were born rich and are going to stay rich no matter what you do."

I got a view of this going to a "reasonably top" (not Harvard or Wharton but close) MBA school. I had lots of classmates I'd describe as "irreversibly rich". Not bad people by any stretch, but just from a different world than I came from. The few of us with blue collar backgrounds kept to ourselves and studied our asses off. Those guys, although they studied too, also socialized and partied quite a bit more. I mean wouldn't you, if your success was a foregone conclusion? If they wanted to, they could[1] go off and direct a non-profit, or run a hedge fund, or take 5 years off to contemplate life and fish. I had to make damn sure I got some kind of job straight away so I could immediately be able to not default on $2000+ loan payments.

1: and by "could" I mean, "have the opportunity to", not "have the ability to". Hell, _I_ could run a hedge fund. Will I ever have the opportunity to? No.