@socaldad2002 I tried to make that point upthread, but it falls on deaf ears. I see it kind of like buying an expensive car. On my street, where people probably earn about what we do, if not less, there are some who own mercedes and BMWs. We have a Subaru. Just isn’t important to us. But sending our kids to “special” undergrad schools (despite the constant refrain of some here “Where you go for UG doesn’t matter”) was important to US. I went to Swarthmore as your typical suburban kid. I’m quite sure if I’d gone to a big state school I still would have majored in Engineering, probably would still have gone on to grad school in Engineering, as I did. But I likely would have attended a lot more football games, a lot more beer parties, and a lot fewer intellectual, artistic, and politically engaging events.
I say that because I know who I was at that age, and what I was interested in (I like beer!) – my college classmates brought out, and emphasized those interests (not to mention that a serious lack of football games and beer parties reinforced it!) I’m glad for all that. This is not to say that someone who goes into college interested in politics, or art, or philosophy, can’t find that lots of places. It’s just that I know I wouldn’t have bothered to look at age 18.