<p>Has anybody even bothered to look at the demand side of this equation? How many poor/working class/first generation college students are even interested in going to a highly selective college?</p>
<p>I have a theory about the college admissions frenzy–my theory is that it is driven by the age old parental instinct to secure a better life for your child than you yourself had. It’s the American Dream. The baby boom is the first generation that more or less took college for granted–we are the ones where middle class students went to a state school. Now that our kids are applying to college, we have a vague sense that we want something “better” for our kids and U.S. News is happy to sell a bunch of magazines that tell us what “better” is. </p>
<p>If nobody in your family has ever been to college, then the local commuter U. or state U. is going to look pretty darn good–affordable, close to home so as to keep the student in touch with family, and not so socially intimidating. </p>
<p>It is kind of elitist and insulting if you think about it to assume that only Harvard is “good enough.” It is stupid too, when you look at all of the highly productive and positive members of our society who went to an unranked school.</p>