| Attitudes around college in the US are really fascinating to me, because I’ve found they vary a lot from region to region and I think really reinforce class divides. I grew up in an area/class where my parents and their friends believed: - All universities and even community colleges are equally good, except for maybe the Ivey league schools they’ve heard about, but no one actually goes to those. - All majors are equally good, except whatever makes you a doctor, which is the best. - Colleges on the east and west coast are very bad because they are purely for liberal indoctrination - The highest earning career path from college is becoming a doctor, and if you become a doctor you are very upper class. - what is majoring in finance? Is that like being a bank teller? - what is studying computer science? Is that like working at Best Buy? Once I got to college and met what I now think of as “the American urban professional class” I found a completely different set of beliefs, where college rankings were do-or-die, everyone wants their kid to go into finance, consulting, or tech, or get an MBA, and everyone seems to inherit large corporate networks from their parents. I’m sure this has all sorts of culture war implications. I know the politics of the community I grew up in has more to do with distrusting/disliking the urban professional class than any wholistic political ideology. Probably both groups should learn something from each other. |