There is a disturbing trend of mob rule where student activists become increasingly obsessed with the silliest things they perceive as "opression" and try to silence every voice at university campuses that doesn't toe the line with their worldview of intersectional feminism, cultural marxism and postmodern power games.
Points in case:
The idea that Yale students are smart enough to choose their own Halloween costumes made a mob of activists feel "unsafe" and they threw a fit, bullying two professors (who voiced this idea) for days until they resigned. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-new...
A transgender candidate (masculine-of-center genderqueer) for the position of "multicultural affairs coordinator" at Wellesley college had to pull out of the race because his opponents accused him of having become a white male and that's not "diverse" enough. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/19/magazine/when-women-becom...
Then there's Evergreen College. I'm at a loss of words to describe the level of crazy that went on there, but here's Jonathan Haidt's take on it: https://heterodoxacademy.org/2017/05/27/this-weeks-witch-hun...
I'm not sure anyone is actually convinced by it, but it sure does seem we are convinced we can't implement an alternative.
Money doesn't matter when you're 21, and rich in health, family and friends. Money matters soo much when you're 56, tired, boring, and have a bad back.
Pretty much the same thing happened to me. I wish I wasn't so late to the party, I could have had my house paid off my now.
Still, I dream there was a less stressful way of going about it all.
I can certainly think of examples at earlier stages of US education, like the (effectively) compulsory daily pledge of allegiance.