> "How do you fix this? In anything other than upper to upper-middle class suburbs, the parents themselves probably went to state schools"

I'm skeptical this is a problem. There are some FANTASTIC public universities (many people choose to go to out of state).

> "By the time most kids learn how the culture works, it's too late, they're already in whatever college and life track they happened to fall into."

There's absolutely nothing wrong with choosing to go to a public university. Many of us decided to attend one instead of private ones.