Considerations

Part of the American Dream is the hope that children will do better than their parents. In theory, each generation should be more successful than the one that precedes it. But, as the New York Times recently reported, this mentality is causing increasing stress and anxiety for the children of upper-class families:

Esther and Colby are two of the amazing girls at Newton North High School here in this affluent suburb just outside Boston. “Amazing girls” translation: Girls by the dozen who are high achieving, ambitious and confident (if not immune to the usual adolescent insecurities and meltdowns). Girls who do everything: Varsity sports. Student government. Theater. Community service. Girls who have grown up learning they can do anything a boy can do, which is anything they want to do.

But being an amazing girl often doesn’t feel like enough these days when you’re competing with all the other amazing girls around the country who are applying to the same elite colleges that you have been encouraged to aspire to practically all your life.

The students in this article (and everyone like them), in a sense, are victims of the Law of Diminishing Returns: the more successful you already are, the harder it becomes to be even more successful. And, in the United States, everyone wants to be more successful than they presently are.

If one grows up poor or in the lower middle-class (like I did), it is fairly easy to move into the middle class if one has sufficient motivation: one studies hard in high school, goes to college, graduates, and obtains a white-collar job. Despite the increasing cost of higher education, a bachelor's degree can still be a Golden Ticket.

But if one grows up in an affluent family, then one naturally wants to do even better. But the competition is much more severe: everyone is intelligent, everyone has monetary resources at his disposal, everyone has access to quality primary and secondary education, and everyone wants to go to a first-tier university and graduate school. Everyone's expectations are higher.

In this environment, it is increasingly hard to separate oneself from the pack -- and no one wants to look like a failure by accepting the second-best. So everyone must maintain a frenzied pace like the girls in the Times article. These students have my sympathy, even though they are more well-off than the vast majority of high-schoolers in the United States. The pressure must be immense.

Still, there is another reason for the stress. Careful readers will realize that the Times focuses on female students; no males are interviewed. As the article notes, more women are going to college, and fewer men are doing so. In what is an interesting twist on feminism, a less-qualified male now has a greater chance of being accepted to a top university than a more-qualified female. Universities want to maintain a demographic balance. So women must work that much harder.

I don't know why fewer men are attending traditional colleges, but I have a few ideas: Most people who attend college -- especially women -- receive degrees in liberal arts. My alma mater, Boston University, now costs $48,800 per year, and students in general are taking out more loans to compensate for fewer grants and scholarships.

To be frank, a degree in English literature or philosophy is probably not worth $200,000. Perhaps male students, who comprise most of the people who study in the technical, mechanical and computing fields, realize this fact and are persuing the latter subjects instead. But women are still more likely to attend traditional universities and study liberal arts despite the cost. And the competition, as the Times article reveals, is fierce.

Over the coming years and decades, I foresee several changes in higher education:

• As the United States must increasingly compete in a flat, globalized world, our educational system will move from the "soft sciences" and towards subjects including business, engineering, mathematics, economics, finance and law.
• Liberal arts will become less of a priority -- even though such subjects are important and necessary. (My undergraduate courses in political science, history and international relations, for example, helped me to understand the world. This in turn informs my decisions when I vote and advocate for specific political actions.)
• More and more Americans will attend universities in other countries because they are cheaper. Competition in all areas is becoming globalized, and higher education is no exception. Prices here should fall to prevent colleges from losing their customers -- er, students.

Elsewhere: Adam Reilly is disgusted by the New York Times article on Newton North High School. Dan Kennedy disagrees and says it's a look at the pressure the students are under. Universial Hub's snarkiness and collection of links are here.

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