College admissions scandal rooted to status anxiety?

The Chronicle of Higher Education quoted SUNY Distinguished Professor Lois Weis on how status anxiety – fears of losing one’s position in a social class – may have been a motivation for the parents involved in the recent college admissions-bribery scandal. College, said Weiss, is one of the best ways to sustain or improve class position. "People with any means at all,” she said, "are incredibly worried that they're not going to be able to sustain their own class position with their children."