Being BR's Friend

Is proving to be far more difficult than I imagined it would be. He came over tonight and I expected him to be in another mood-happy to see me, glad the new year is right around the corner-but he wasn't; he was still angry at his parents because they told him the truth...He tends to romanticize situations and is the world's biggest procrastinator. His parents wanted to know what he was planning on doing with his life since he's been out of undergrad for almost a year. They wanted to know if he had found a suitable job and/or his progress on grad school and I suppose he should have seen this coming, living and breathing under their roof and all. From what I've known about his folks, they expect soo much out of him and to see him jumping from one ranky-danky job to the next, being stagnant, is a disappointment. Like I mentioned, he came over tonight while MBR/C and I were watching Anna & the King. He looked abit distant and saddened, so as soon as the movie was over, we headed to my room. I felt that he needed to talk so we sat down on my twin and I opened my ears (while desperately trying to keep my mouth closed) as he explained the argument he had with his parents. BR wants to go to an "ivy league" graduate school for Africana Studies. I asked him why and his only reply was "because they have really great programs." You'd think that there was more to it. I really think, well I know, that he looks down on the state provided education he (and myself) received. Perhaps getting into an ivy league will "improve" his undergraduate degree. I don't know. You know, I really don't like people who rag on the schools they've gotten degrees from as if they are just...Shit (and when you think about it, what does that say about them). My college experience has been just the same as anyone else no matter where they went-Princeton, Yale, Harvard. In fact, it's been better and hell of lot cheaper if you ask me, but I'm digressing...BR got angry with me because I wouldn't say what he wanted to hear: that his parents were talking nonsense and shouldn't be worried about their only son's future; that he should continue to get recommendation after recommendation from professors that hated to see him comin for institutions that will have him up to his eye balls in debt and that probably won't accept him fully into their schools (he wasn't Magna Cum Laude or anything close to it). I was telling a friend about this during a heated Iming session and his thoughts were:

To compare Harvard or Princeton to our state funded school is like
camparing a McRib to a Steak from Pauletts: there is no compariosson. Just
because of the name its going to look better. All you're really doing is paying
for the name and networks because I have a friend that went to both a public
university and graduated undergrad from a Ivy school, he said the public
institution was more difficult.

I was just trying to be a good friend, you know, listen and offer some form of input. I played devil's advocate, asking him if he'd given any thought to the fact that he may be romanticising some of his grad school plans and that just made him furious with me. I don't understand what he expected from me. Was I suppose to sit quietly, hold his hand and rock him like a baby? That would be pacifying him and he's too old for that. So, for a week or so, I can expect that he won't call until he can find some way to turn this all on me and make an attempt to excited my wrath. I'm thinking...Should I beat him to the punch?