Laura Hamilton, an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Merced, began studying a group of college women and their families back in 2004, embedding herself in the dormitory of a midwestern college and later writing about her qualitative research in two books, Paying for the Party and Parenting to a Degree. As Hamilton explained in a 2016 Atlantic article adapted from the latter book, involvement by the parents varied. Some parents, often those without college experience themselves, had a hands-off approach to their kids’ higher education, while other parents were more involved. Among the most highly involved parents, some helped their kids navigate the school bureaucracy so they could later enter into graduate programs or a solid entry-level job requiring a degree. Others were highly involved with their daughters’ social lives, assuring that they were well-positioned to find wealthy husbands. “The Mrs. degree is alive and well,” Hamilton told me.

While some parents might focus on career goals for their children and others care more about their daughters’ social lives, there is no question that parents’ involvement in the lives of their college-aged kids as a whole has intensified—at least among middle-class and wealthy families whose children attend selective colleges. According to Harlan Cohen, the author of The Naked Roommate: For Parents Only: A Parent’s Guide to the New College Experience, smartphones and social media have enabled parents to stay more hands-on. Cohen, who has worked with college administrators at over 500 colleges and meets regularly with parents as part of his research, added that it’s not unusual for parents to send their kids a wake-up call in the morning to ensure that they make it to their early classes. Stacy, for her part, communicates with her daughter at least three times a day.

Parenting involvement is certainly also driven in part by the rising cost of college tuition. The full cost of attendance at most selective private universities can run around $65,000 per year—a nearly $260,000 four-year bill for parents whose children do not qualify for merit or need-based aid. Between 1995 and 2015, the average tuition at national private colleges jumped 179 percent. Out-of-state tuition and fees at public institutions rose by 226 percent over that same period of time. College is often the biggest expenditure that parents will ever make for their children; they want to make sure that their money is being well spent. Few people would spend $260,000 without expecting some oversight.

What’s more, many parents have a deep fear that their children will be unable to find work after graduation and remain dependent upon them during their 20s. To avoid this fate, some choose to oversee their kids’ academic choices. After all, the “kid in the basement” bogeyman isn’t entirely irrational: Navigating college has become more complicated than ever before, especially at large public colleges where there can be multiple specialized schools and hundreds of majors. Mistakes—such as choosing a major that doesn’t correspond to locally available careers—can be very expensive if they lead to additional time in school.