Then that is a really weird passage. HBCUs are a purely American thing. Legacy admissions are a purely American thing. Paying to get your kids into a university is a purely American thing.

Also, the author uses the American spelling "curb". If they do live in London, they are presumably a migrant from the US.

Oh, interesting. Do you know where they're from? It sounds to me like it must be a place that's very Americanized, for sure.

Edit: Nevermind, I misread the paragraph about London as being just a story about something happening in London, rather than abeing about something that happened to the author in London.