>As a European, US colleges/universities seem more like boarding schools. Here, no university would think that they have any business interfering with students' personal lives or anything they do outside a lecture hall, because they are considered adults.

Seconding this. It was quite a stark difference in university culture and expectations to me between US and NL.

I wouldn't take that line of reasoning too far. Most kids in the US don't go to college and many that do never live in a dorm. And for most schools with dorms, dorm living is only the first year or two for most students.

Maybe it's different at expensive private schools in the US, but the vast majority of Americans never attend those schools.

> Most kids in the US don't go to college

It's about 63% of high-school grads, including both 2-year and 4-year colleges: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cpa

From the same source: The overall college enrollment rate for 18- to 24-year-olds was 40 percent in 2020.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cpb/college-enrol...

Many students will have graduated by the time they are 24, so it is possible that both statements 1. the majority of American children go to college and 2. 40 percent of 18-24 year olds are enrolled are simultaneously true

I’m not suggesting they these numbers are in contradiction.

I believe they are actually measuring any time enrollment in that period. Otherwise the statistic seems of little value.

On time high school graduation is achieved by around 86% of the population. This surely accounts for much of the difference.

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=805

Assuming (1) all college students enter at 18 exactly, and (2) all college students are enrolled for exactly the nominal time of their degree program, and (3) the number of students in each year of age is equal and enrollment rates are constant year to year, 63% of students attending college, and 40% enrollment of 18-24 year olds implies 37.8% attend 2 year programs and 25.2% attend 4 year programs. Now, the actual numbers are different than that because the assumptions are all three false, but the point is, that there is nothing inconsistent with the 63% immediate enrollment rate and 40% of students in the 18-24 year age band being currently enrolled.

> 63% of students attending college

63% is the statistic for high-school grads, whereas the person you're replying to is talking about all "18-24 kids", so "all kids graduate high school" is an appendix to assumption 1) you would need to add.

> More broadly speaking, there seems to be a tendency in current US culture of infantilising young adults.

There are obvious incentives for infantilising your population, from capitalism to governance. I find it unsurprising that the US would be exceptionally awful in this regard, when it's so good for business to convince your adults they're helpless children dependent on almighty corporate products/services.

But if we look at the global history of religious indoctrination, arguably the epitome and oldest form of infantilising at-scale, there's certainly not a US monopoly on the practice.

>There are obvious incentives for infantilising your population, from capitalism to governance. I find it unsurprising that the US would be exceptionally awful in this regard, when it's so good for business to convince your adults they're helpless children dependent on almighty corporate products/services.

This is not how CEOs make decisions. Nor college administrators. Your hypothetical cabal of wealthy elites steepling their fingertips and discussing how best to infantilize the population doesn't exist. Those elites have kids too and they want their kids to be productive members of society. For this theory to have even baseline plausibility, there'd have to be a trend where the kids of the elites went through some sort of non-infantilizing process so they'd be better equipped to rule, but in fact the kids of the elites at places like Yale are even more infantilized.

I can't think of any times my university cared about anything I did outside of the lecture hall (besides maybe my professors caring about me having done the work?) in the US. What are you referring to?

Did you live in a dorm and did your dorm room have a stove and/or oven?

Oh, I did live in a dorm and I guess it didn't. It was one small room for two people, maybe 150sqft or less, we had a communal kitchen.

From my sample of 1 young adults no longer fight to be treated like grown-ups. Moreover, don't seem to want that in the first place.

I find this pretty interesting - does it go hand in hand with younger generations seeing no hope for their future, whether it be climate change, being financially stable, having a fulfilling life, finding a partner?

I mean, housing markets have ensured that they will live at home for longer periods of time and may never be able to own, or even rent a place by themselves.

Same thing goes for starting families, the costs are insane and even if you have kids, you will barely see them in order to just pay for their childcare itself. Good luck if you can't afford health insurance and care, either.

The opportunities to do "adult things" are pricing out pretty much everyone except the adult children of high earners or the wealthy.

> I mean, housing markets have ensured that they will live at home for longer periods of time and may never be able to own, or even rent a place by themselves.

That’s not an inevitability; it’s a policy choice. If zoning was less restrictive more housing could be built. The people are getting what they want, good and hard.

I agree, but many of the people who are negatively affected by zoning restrictions were either children and not born yet when those restrictions were implemented. I wouldn't say they're getting what they want.

My sample of 1: I’m (45) dating a younger person (25). In some ways he’s much more mature than my friend group was at his age, but in many ways not. It’s been fascinating to see what his expectations are. His other friends are slightly older (late 20s/early 30s) and all of them still party and do shit me and my friend groups stopped by our junior/senior university years. They just seem to have different expectations of what life is supposed to be like.

I also see this very widespread! Young adults today seem to hold desperately onto parts of their youth. Entertainment, experiences, lifestyles, even food and clothing.

When I was a kid, it was a scramble to get your driver's license as soon as you were legally old enough. Today I know so many 22 year olds without a license and zero interest in getting it. Where has the ambition gone?

> Where has the ambition gone?

To be honest, I made my driving license pretty much as soon as I could, but now I don't understand what for. I have never really used it. I don't think I have driven a car for the last 10 years at all in fact, and if I wanted to get a car and start driving now I'm pretty sure I would have to take lessons again, so not being "ambitious" in this regard seems like a perfectly sensible choice to me. My partner had pretty much the exact same experience with their driving license as I did.

(as is probably easy to guess, I don't live in the US)

It's not like I stopped playing the games I played in school age, or stopped liking the foods I liked when I was a kid, or stopped being a lazy one in lifestyle and clothing. This is different.

From my sample of also N=1 (me, a 22 year old college student) I agree.

I don't fight with my parents because I'm conflict avoidant. Plus, I'm financially dependent on my parents. I'm not going to risk my food and shelter for abstract ideas like "agency" or "maturing."

I think it’s really important that parents make their kids financially independent. And if it’s just sending them a fixed amount of money every month as long as they are in college, without any other requirements („it’s not important what and how you do it, as long as you do an education you have xxx$ every month to spend. If you need more, get a job.“)

I agree. When I was that age, I thought of people who would use conflict to achieve “independence” as being full of hippie ideals for idiots. Enjoy what you can and work behind people’s backs rather than spark conflict.

I think that point is overstated. The EU universities provide housing to students too and it is not that massively different, except Greek life. And I swear overwhelming majority of these comics comes from frats who are in power play against university. Every time I dug into specific issues, it turns out being just a bunch of manipulative claims.

But is it not common to force students, as a condition of attending lectures, to live in university housing, and to eat university provided meals?

And it is not the case that university housing comes with "advisers" who ensure you are living in an approved way? (And for some bizarre reason you cannot have your own bedroom, you have to share - a last ditch effort to obstruct pre-marital sex?)

In the EU anything not associated with studying for a degree is option, and if housing is provided it is just housing without any a special measures to supervise the tenants.

At least in Germany, housing, catering and sports facilities are usually in the hands of a seperate body so there is no incentive for the university to try to use their power over students to force their use.

> for some bizarre reason you cannot have your own bedroom

The most obvious reason is cost. It's far cheaper to build a dormitory with 1 room per 2-4 residents than with 1 room per 1 resident.

Inability to have own bedroom is quite normal, single bedrooms are expensive.

Afaik, mandatory dorm living is rare, but again that is rare in America too. Most American students attend local state schools. Students eating meals made by school incredibly normal and incredibly traditional - it is not some kind of new development. Both in EU and America.

There are employees responsible for dorms in Europe too. The rules wary between place to place, so you would need to be more concrete regarding what "rules about how to live" you have in mind. I have seen rules about visitors, noise, time when visitors come etc. In America you have additional rules about alcohol, cause their legal underage is 21, compared with Germany 16. And this is largely legal requirement.

There is no equivalence of Greek life where you pledge to live by fraternity or sorority rules, which tend to be quite expansive ... but oddly these are not framed this way .

> At least in Germany, housing, catering and sports facilities are usually in the hands of a seperate body so there is no incentive for the university to try to use their power over students to force their use.

Afaik, with exception of PE which does exists in EU too, students are not forced to use school sport facilities. They do use them cause they are available and free or cheap.

American schools have that bundled together and the prominent expensive ones are basically mini self sufficient cities. So yes, they are under one banner.

You're right, but all the industrialized countries are similar. Too many laws, nanny states.

Children have to explore their environment and learn from their experiences to grow up. If you leash them, you steel of them their childhood and adulthood, and because the cage is build of laws that mostly count for all, you steel of the few that could grow up normal their adulthood, too.