Actually two specialized public high schools in NYC are pretty good: Stuyvesant High School and Hunter College High School. Admission is very competitive. Around 5% to 7% students graduated from these schools go to Ivy schools like Harvard University and other good schools like Stanford University. Their school program is very vigorous and rigid. A kind of like high schools in Russia. Their courses are heavily focusing on math and science. They train their students like an Olympic champ. That is why a lot of them do very well on SATs. Except these schools and one or two others, all other public schools are pretty bad.
Of course, if you have the money and don't mind to spend it, you can send send your kids to some good private schools in the city like Dalton School or Columbia Grammar School where your kids have much higher chance than public high school like Hunter College High School to Ivies. But don't be surprise that these schools ask you for huge annual donations in addition to tuition each year. The donation amount might be more than you pay for the tuition. Also don't be surprise to see many kids in these have personal chauffeurs and body guards.
Last time I checked, most of the "Millionaires Next Door" did not go to private schools or Ivy Leagues, neither were their kids. Once upon a time our company did a study of its successful employees, the number 1 link to their success was not school but ranking/GPA in school.
I always laugh when people say stuff like this. Nobody is forcing your friend to live in one of the highest COL places on Earth, nobody is forcing him to put his kids in expensive private school, nobody is forcing him to have an expensive place to live....the central theme here is he chooses to buy/pay for expensive shit and then complains that it's expensive....he made every single one of those decisions. And for the record I'm not in favor of higher taxes on anybody, I'm in favor of personal responsibility, especially for someone who has the means to choose to be responsible or not.
Watch out with the millionaires next door, usually the term is used for middle income folks who live cheap and save a bunch of that income to be able to put on their name 1 million or 2. Not much of a success story.
Probably you need to check "Millionaires Next Door" statistics. It was based on faulty stats and survivor bias.
I don't see anything wrong with been a millionaire and live below one's means. Until you get there you don't know the feeling of financial freedom: freedom of choice, to work, not to work, to live where you want, how you want and what you want.
Live below one's means is sound, but better do that with a high income, better be a millionaire miser than a poor miser but much better avoid being a miser altogether. I remember we had already long threads about it, when Surf was active (we saw with a similar eye on that topic), so please excuse me if I bail out of this one, in case it lasts. Basically the image of Millionaire next door is one of a very very modestly financially successful person.