[supportengineer]

Somehow, late stage capitalism seems to bring us to this winner-take-all environment. We are being separated into rich and poor and forced farther and farther apart.

In large part for the reasons you stated, I'm sending one kid to a $100k per year private university instead of the $7k per year state school.

I was helping my kid try to apply for summer jobs. It involved a lot of 2FA apps and QR codes, which needed to be installed on a phone with the latest security updates, plenty of space, and a fast internet connection. The same was true onboarding the student onto the university.

Why do we tolerate this world where the bar is so high and getting higher all the time?

[Aurornis]

> Why do we tolerate this world where the bar is so high and getting higher all the time?

There isn’t a single “bar”. The company the parent commenter was talking about was a single company at a single point in the job market using a single heuristic.

These anecdotes are anecdotes, not representative of the entire industry.

The pointy end of the job market has always been selective. There have been companies that select from specific universities for decades, if not longer. It’s not a new phenomenon, nor is it a universal practice.

The pointy end of the job market has always been exclusive.

[alfiedotwtf]

It’s interesting because I’ve seen the direct opposite. Also, it’s been at least 15 years since I’ve ever been asked for my references… but mine have never been called regardless

[silverquiet]

As a child who went through this, I could not put a child of my own through that system; I couldn’t do the pointless teacher-pleasing busy-work and it took a piece of my soul and childhood away. On the other hand, I totally understand the necessity of it. Squaring the circle on those two contradictory feelings was quite simple for me - simply don’t have children. I thought I was a bit unusual for that, buy it seems that this is more common than I thought; fertility is falling throughout the developed world and I think super intensive parenting expectations have to be at least a part of that.

[bokoharambe]

Is it really necessary? I'm not seeing it.

[silverquiet]

I have friends who did not go the college degree route and it is very grim.

[otoburb]

But perhaps a cheap(er) school, almost by definition not quite as competitive, could still be better than "no college degree whatsoever".

[bokoharambe]

I was thinking more along the lines of "does schooling have to be awful" than "should you go to school." I apologize for being unclear.

[silverquiet]

The majority of Americans do not have degrees but do have jobs that are necessary for society, which isn’t to say that they pay well.

[corimaith]

While I wouldn't describe it as late-stage capitalism, the situation OP is describing definitely isn't sustainable, we're all becoming more like Korea or China, high stratified and overstressed societies that may well be dead ends given their declining birthrates.

I recall the controversy about Amy Chua's Tiger Mom a decade ago, the funny thing is that Amy Chua today believes that her methods would be insufficient for the competition today. When we have parents fighting for top kindergartens and extracurriculars for 5 year-olds, you know this is getting out of hand. And the worst part is, for all the rise of "overachievers" going into these jobs, services and products in society just seem to be getting worse and worse.

[karmakurtisaani]

> And the worst part is, for all the rise of "overachievers" going into these jobs, services and products in society just seem to be getting worse and worse.

Sounds natural, as the profit-driven corporate machinery is getting more qualified and more obedient workforce than ever before!

[squircle]

I totally agree with the your frustration over the technological barriers... you should not need a cell phone to survive/thrive in this world. We're designing a world where the concept of "affordance" is replaced by "dependence".

On the other hand, investing the $93k/year difference in the state/public institutions where your child might have gone seems like a better pathway to a win-win scenario.

(But, does this really make any sense when our learning institutions move at a bureacratic snails pace, and are bogged down by egos and other inefficiencies? Meh.)

Perhaps we should consider running learning-institutions like lean startups where, instead of success being measured by capital wealth, well-being and innovation are the KPIs.