I enjoyed this New York Times article about how colleges are dealing with parents who, when dropping their freshman child off for the first day of college, just won't… you know… go.  

There's some obvious things colleges do, like have mass student orientation in large halls with signs outside saying "for students only".  Other times they arrange events so that the university president is addressing the freshmen student body… with his back to the parents.  (Get the hint?)

All to avoid this uncomfortable scenario:

Moving their students in usually takes a few hours. Moving on? Most deans can tell stories of parents who lingered around campus for days. At Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., a mother and father once went to their daughter’s classes on the first day of the semester and trouped to the registrar’s office to change her schedule, recalled Beverly Low, the dean of first-year students.