For people who don't neccessarily like working (i.e. for most people), school and college are usually the best times of lifes. It's just that it's hard to appreciate that when you have no point of reference. My parents and aunt had this wisdom and, while I was a child, told me "enjoy yourself now, because it will be all downhill from here".

Or doing a PhD.

After that, any non-academic job is super easy.

I don't know where/when those people you mention went to undergrad. When I went, it was brutal and endless. In order to graduate in 4 years, I had to take 18-20 credits per semester. When I wasn't in the classroom, I was in lab, and when I wasn't in lab, I was working on hours and hours of assignments. The professors never coordinated workload, so it all came at once in waves. All the exams were done in the same week, too, so you'd have to frantically cram. EDIT: Then, there was the job hunt during junior and senior years. Resume after resume, application after application, interview after interview. If I actually did any partying, I certainly don't remember it. Those four years were a blur of coursework that I still have nightmares about and am glad are firmly in the past. No job I've ever had in the decades since has come close to the amount of workload I had in university.

School was better. You don't become homeless if you get a D

Being told that as a child really fucked me up, actually. It's a really bad, pernicious idea.

It's analogous to money in politics or insider trading as far as conflicts of interest go. I guess it would help if education was enshrined in our constitutions as a human right, which institutions had fiduciary duties to uphold.

What do you think made the CSU/UC system the most affordable and attractive option in the Country?

The thing you need to accept is that the unfettered administrative bloat was by design, and will always lead to this; the CSU/UC system was essentially tuition-free if you were local and extremely low cost for most of its History because it didn't offer what the others did and we Californians funded that with extremely high local/state/property taxes and our family and by extension our economies were rewarded for it, so we put up with.

It wasn't until the bureaucrats made Industry impose a mandatory University degree for most entry-level jobs well into the 90s that many of those same people migrated to academia and start to shift it to the sordid mess you see today.

Honestly, I say keep in place: let it fall into disrepute crippled by its own malaise once and for all but have legislation in place that it cannot be bailed out when it does. Its the only way I think this has any chance of reform.

Personally, one of the silver linings of the Shutdown in California is showing just how much unnecessary bloat their is in Universities (and in Industry) to deliver on its MVP: accredited completion of courses to issue degrees. If this doesn't disrupt academia and make it shift to a having mainly an online-learning direction for most of its programs then it should rightfully walk into its own demise.

I just registered for a bunch of Coresera and Udemy courses on ML, Sustainability and Supply Chain analytics with accreditation from Industry and University alike for what amounts to what cost less than what I paid for 1 or maybe 2 textbooks while I was in University--that I can complete at my own pace on my terms.

If the goal was to foster an environment for those with the drive to acquire useful skills, then I'd say we already have evolved past the archaic University system and are only forced to be burdened by it solely because of convention.

Apprenticeships are pretty much the backbone of the Germanic countries' Economic and Industrial might, and University is pretty much just an affectation or continued learning component; we need to learn that lesson considering just how much of the US 'education system' is based on Prussian Pedagogy and Ideology.

They don't have "college funds," they have "education funds" because they will always need education, regardless of how it's delivered.

I'm looking forward to a time when that can be used for Coursera, Lynda (LinkedIn Learning), and any other continuing education program. That will be a powerful shift.

And before techies get up in arms about how much of a meritocracy their field is -- survey your FAANG/elite startup coworkers. See what school they went to.

This cannot be true as most Americans do not go to college. Of those that do, most do not do it the "traditional" timeframe of 4 contiguous years after high school.

For example, only 36% of 25-30 year olds have a college degree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_...

It appears that claim is wrong:

"In October 2018, 69% of 16- to 24-year-olds who graduated high school in 2018 were enrolled, with 9 out of 10 reporting they were full-time students – a marginal increase over 2017 high school graduates, 67% of whom were enrolled in college or university. Over the last decade, that figure has fluctuated between 66% and 70%."

https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2019-04-...

It is probably worth recognizing that for students who go to college for the experience there is little incentive to graduate.

I think that is the most disheartening thing of all that its become such an accepted and prevalent narrative; from Junior year of High School to to my Junior year of undergrad I had my own business(es), and was involved in professional motorsports (University was always my 'Plan B' if it all went wrong) in some capacity.

My Life was way more fun (albeit stressful and exhausting) outside of University, and almost never within it; I was there to do one thing and one thing only: graduate, and network with professors for lab positions and training to expedite my career as a Clinical Laboratory Scientist. Nothing else mattered to me that took place at school, it was a drain on what I deemed my 'real life,' so I knew I was an anomaly going into this system as Freshman enrollment and orientation had made it clear to me what I had gotten into.

I went to one of the more 'renown' party schools in the US for my upper divisions so I often had embarrassing encounters when turning down persistent invitations to events and parties at school, some possibly even being useful networking events--I mean if you have ever been to an official Red Bull party at an Industry event with an open bar, catering and entertainment and insiders to network and make deals was always going to make some kegger on campus seem monotonous.

Especially if you're there while under 21, as it leaves an impression to say the least.

But, I did notice how prevalent the Health Sciences, which were often really impacted majors at that school, were geared toward admitting non-Californian students, and would bend backwards for International students.

During the good times of the bubble era, I saw it for what it was and didn't mind really it: I was quite open to the cosmopolitan student body.

But it became crystallized how gravely insidious it had become as we started to head into the recession and especially within it as catering to International students was a priority; limited class and lab sections were a common occurrence as the CSU/UC system got hit hard with budget cuts and furloughs, strikes etc...

This all meant that placating to the International students was an even higher priority as so much funding depended on doing so, as keeping them content and within the system was far more profitable than having local students (Californian students) graduate on time who pay 1/7 of the tuition and probably don't participate as much on 'campus life' as they have family and friends outside of it.

I saw time and again as departments were pulling class/lab seats but were filled with predominately International Chinese students in the upper divisions as we had to petition to enter them, and exclusive elective courses: this isn't racist profiling just an observation, my great-grandmother is from Guangzhou, just so its clear.

I still remember my Organic Chemistry lecture that had 100+ seats available, and we were all sitting on the floor, isles, and their were students out the doors trying to petition for a seat. It's embarrassing to recall what it felt like I remember someone from administration coming irate at the fire hazard that it created and her solution being: encouraging those that had 'flexibility in their schedule' to go off campus to the CU 30 miles away and would be admitted (at an undisclosed a higher fee) as the first bailout in 2007 was being proposed that fall semester.

All of this left such a horribly bitter taste in my mouth, I saw the same thing happen with the Korean students at the University where I started where my family still lived and it was a crazy transition. Every time I went to visit there were more Mercedes, BMW, Audi and as the Korean luxury brands got more prevalent Genesis and big Hyundai cars all over that campus as I rode my bike around.

CU Boulder looks like that from the outside, and I'm told from a friend that recently graduated with a BS in Genetics it was the same; he's a local but his freshman year dorm roommate was some Saudi prince's son. I tuned out to the stories he'd say, but the it was practically the same.

So, with that in mind its not surprise to me to see articles like this being common place and finally confirming it, its a big part of what made me lose all value in academia, despite knowing several amazing professors and post docs within. Its realized it was such a rigged system that I had to put scruples and often times dignity off the table to accomplish my goals in a reasonable time frame; this led to a very interesting conversations with an International student in Lichtenstein that led to a collaborative study network I created among my peers.

This article with the USC admissions is also worth a read, as the Admission's officer was profiting from Chinese student admission fraud:

https://laist.com/2020/04/02/usc-cheating-ex-admissions-offi...

I have a hard time seeing how this (college being a great time in your life) is disheartening. For many, it's a time that a combination of

- learning

- meeting new people

- experiencing new things

And for many of them, there's much less stress about how they're going to pay their bills, feed their kids, etc. Those are great things for a LOT of people. If you can, you should enjoy them to the best of your ability.

That you're mentally setting yourself up for be stunted for the rest of your Life is inevitable if you reach your apex by 22 and is incredibly sad; personally speaking, despite that phase of my Life I really didn't know how much more joy I would get out of Life until I turned 26 and saw how my skill set enabled way more opportunities as I got to travel, work and collaborate with People outside my discipline.

Learning the 'Game of Life' via the University lens is what makes the 'academic' trope so astonishingly laughable: making 'safe spaces' a norm has to be the most infantile notion I've ever heard of. What part of Life, outside the perversions of a FAANG like corp where you're pretty much vetted for social regression/immaturity, accommodates that?

And as we saw with all the cancel culture and mob violence mentality that has been created (mainly on University campuses): it is cancerous. If you cannot see a problem with this, then I think you are the Problem.

I'm so glad I got out as that phase of campus life was starting to became the norm.

I got to do all those things during college (exception travel, but I'm not a big fan of travel). I've enjoyed my life since college, in some ways more. But college was a unique, wonderful experience that I remember fondly. Going back to school isn't in the cards for me, but it's certainly the source of the occasional idle thought.

The rest of your discussion seems to veer off on a tangent ranting about current social constructs at colleges. It certainly isn't part of the discussion I was having about how college can be a truly wonderful time in one's life. That has been true for decades, at the least, certainly predating the things you're talking about.

Your POV reflects that, which is very unfortunate, as does your adamant dismissal about my 'tangent' not being relevant to my conclusion of how the priorities of the system have been completely lost; I used it to try and convey a very observable example as it proves that the well can been poisoned by administrative decree, which is in turn aided by those very same who sought to create University into a walled garden experience.

If people are uncomfortable with having their convictions and ideals questioned and placed into scrutiny than something like 'higher education' should be the antithesis of what they are seek and they should be discouraged into such a system--instead they seem to be encouraged to do so all while accruing obscene amounts of un-payable student debt, backed by the State. Further creating an explotable under-class which ultimately amounts to indentured servitude.

But hey, don't let me interfere with the pursuits of all of those luminary Gender Studies majors being awarded PhDs for their exemplary work on the correct use of Gender pronouns of fluid-furries Influencers on Social Media.