Is there any alternative to college? College is, for better or worse, one of the stops one has to make on the way to many cognitively rewarding professions. When I hear these stories my reaction is "ok - that place is off the list". Eventually there may not be much of a list left. Maybe there is less craziness in the hard sciences ...
My eldest is applying to colleges. His interests are very technical, and so his choices are all focused in that area. We got lucky there. I feel much better about paying a small fortune for one of these institutions. When people are busy learning about satellite systems, complex analysis, and materials science, they have less time and energy to protest that the cafeteria staff is guilty of cultural appropriation because the
sushi rice was underdone.
Actually, looking back on my own college years, today's techie students (like those of my day) are probably just grateful to have 45 minutes for lunch between lecture and lab, underdone rice or no. Oh, I do not miss that.
