The portrait of the college grad painted in the article is consistent with what I’ve seen as an undergrad at Harvard in econ and CS circles.

> [College students want money, structure, and sex appeal.]

But I’ll add another motivation to the laundry list, that draws smart grads to selective/prestigious programs (including Harvard, Goldman, Google, and even YC): Smart grads want to be surrounded by other smart grads, because they want to build peer relationships with future co-founders and business partners.