The younger residents in my apartment building seem stuck in college. They wear pajamas and slippers in public spaces. They leave their empty food containers in the hall. Like students, they leave it to the older residents to take responsibility. Young residents do not contribute to a Christmas fund for the building staff. Nor do they join residents’ committees for building maintenance or entertainment.
But it’s not just in my building that it feels like college. After my years outside the U.S., it feels strange that many of the people I encounter in my Washington neighborhood look so familiar.
On my daily dog walks, I recognize types who have barely moved on from their college category. There are the self-conscious alternatives, who, now in their fifties or sixties, still wear Birkenstocks and Grateful Dead t-shirts. I recognize the earnest girls who have professionalized their desire to help people. They now carry tote bags and water bottles with logos from conferences on international development or the environment. The debate society types wear the cheap suits and brown shoes that are the uniform of Capitol Hill staffers.
Young residents do not contribute to a Christmas fund for the building staff. Nor do they join residents’ committees for building maintenance or entertainment.
It’s not just personal style, though, that bears the mark of college. Living outside the U.S. has given me the mental distance to recognize how the U.S. college experience extends to other spheres of American life, particularly in well-to-do neighborhoods like mine.
Child rearing is clearly shaped by the perceived need to have your child go to a similar or better college than you did. The college admissions process plays a visible role in raising children. Parents groom their four-year-olds for nursery school interviews. They pilot children’s sports and activities with an eye to what might be attractive to colleges or be good material for a personal statement.
The college application template seems to run much of American life. In Italy, if I were seeking a job, getting an apartment, volunteering, or wanting to join a group, I’d call up a friend and ask if they could make an introduction or suggest someone else who could. With a contact made, I’d have coffee with whoever was doing the volunteer hiring or handling membership. In the U.S., I fill out an application that, like those for college, asks for my educational and work qualifications, has boxes to check for gender and race/ethnic categories and often asks for a personal statement.
The American system may seem fairer or more objective than the Italian one, since it doesn’t need a personal connection. However, it selects for people who are good at applications, regardless of their relevance to the task at hand.
In contrast to the Italian coffee, the American system has no room for spontaneity. You can’t adjust your tone or take a more fruitful tack. On an application, it’s hard to show your own personality or get a feeling for the institution or person you are interacting with. An application is a one-time thing. Even if the coffee may not get the job or the role, it may lead to another or just to a friendship.
I often wonder if thinking like college applicants has encouraged America’s obsession with identity and group identity. Organizations try to create the “perfect college class,” with one of everything. The application process makes it hard to resist channeling people (and ourselves) into identities that correspond to boxes to check, such as gender, ethnicity, age cohort.
The college application creates a worldview where you are chosen or not. There are no middle ways; you are accepted or rejected. When this happens, the lines on an application form or a resume become measures of self-worth.
There are other broad effects of widespread college education. Aggrandizing academic ways of speaking have infiltrated daily life. It feels as if everyone is trying to be smart and get the professor’s attention in the seminar. Instead of home decorating styles or personal taste, such as “casual,” “formal,” “early American,” or “Mediterranean,” we have a “personal aesthetic.” Social media posts sound like undergraduate essays, where concepts such as “tropes” or “othering” and “curating” are applied to food or relationship problems.
You might think intellectual habits acquired from widespread college education would improve civic life or politics. Instead, the academic habit of identifying the abstract principles behind facts or issues is a stumbling block. It is not helpful if your HOA discussions or local government about practical matters such as making infrastructure improvements or zoning changes turn into discussions about “systemic” assumptions or impacts. Does your town really need a position on Gaza?
When bread and butter issues that affect the lives of real people of all kinds are reduced to abstractions or underlying principles most people get bored.
College thinking and vocabulary have certainly fueled anger towards elites and experts.
When bread and butter issues that affect the lives of real people of all kinds are reduced to abstractions or underlying principles most people get bored. People are less interested in whether healthcare is a right, than if it is affordable, simple and good. Nor do they have philosophical preferences about whether this is achieved by the government or private enterprise.
Likewise, campaigning on the “threat to democracy” is equally ineffective. It would be better to speak directly about concrete, tangible things, such as tackling specific cases of corruption or choosing legislators for their policy ideas, not their ideological allegiance.
A college educated citizenry obviously enriches our country with people who think critically and have technical expertise. College may also have given many “the best four years” of their lives. But then it’s time to move on.
