Colleges aren't trendy handbags ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So many students and parents seem to be chasing trends and the affirmation of others' opinions (veneer of prestige, silly categorizations like "Ivy Plus" or "little ivy" or "T20", arguing about how to create categories within categories: like breaking down small LACS into wasp or +B). Enough. This is too much. College isn't a fashion object or handbag du jour, it's a retreat of learning, period. The professors and their teaching style "rate my prof", course calendars, curriculum core, etc. should be scrutinized instead.

People are focused on impressing each other not on growing.

Welcome to DCUM…been like this for……………….20 yrs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The people here are shallow, correct.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Louis Vuitton - Ivy League
Balenciaga - NYU
Chanel - WASP
Versace - Miami and USC
Loewe - WASP
Michael Kors - Flagship State Schools
Kate Spade - Colleges that Change Lives
Gucci - Stanford
Dior - Seven Sisters

Case in point ^^

[Anonymous]

Of course colleges are not handbags. Colleges should be selected based on which provides the best education for your student’s needs and also maximizes the outcomes within the realm of what is possible for your student’s actual potential. For some students, ivies and a few other elites are the only ones that have a peer group that will be appropriately challenging and also leave all the doors open to the most academically intense and/or highly selective careers. If your uber bright student also happens to be fairly undecided, all the more reason to chose an ivy or similar top school.

None of those factors matter for handbag selection. They are quite different processes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So many students and parents seem to be chasing trends and the affirmation of others' opinions (veneer of prestige, silly categorizations like "Ivy Plus" or "little ivy" or "T20", arguing about how to create categories within categories: like breaking down small LACS into wasp or +B). Enough. This is too much. College isn't a fashion object or handbag du jour, it's a retreat of learning, period. The professors and their teaching style "rate my prof", course calendars, curriculum core, etc. should be scrutinized instead.

People are focused on impressing each other not on growing.

From a foreigner who has been here for 25 years married to an American with American born kids…..
In most of the world, university is a place you go to get a credential to start a career. In America, college is a four year identity construction project. When grown adults wear college sweatshirts in their 40s, they aren't celebrating an alma mater. They are signaling their tribe, their socio-economic bracket, and their perceived intellectual tier. W re to blame. For a German or a Frenchman, wearing your university hoodie at 45 is as weird as wearing a high school jersey to a board meeting……it simply signals that your period of greatest personal significance ended in your early 20’s………..Americans turned universities into lifestyle brands. All of you, all of us are to blame. This has been a slow process…Since we don't have titles of nobility, "Princeton" or "Stanford" serves as a modern version of a coat of arms. We treat these names like handbags because they are portable markers of status that tell everyone in the room you belong to the "managed class." This is why "Greek life" and massive sports stadiums exist. They provide the social glue and the "experience" that justifies a $400,000 price tag. You aren't paying for the lecture; you're paying for the right to belong to a specific caste.
we use these "silly categorizations" like Ivy Plus or Little Ivy as a form of shorthand for what Pierre Bourdieu called "symbolic capital"…… It’s a way to vet people without actually knowing their character or competence.

Let’s be honest, The idea of universities in 2026 as a "retreat of learning" died when we began funding it through massive individual debt. When a student is a "customer" paying six figures, they don't want to be challenged….they want a return on investment. The professors become service providers. The "Rate My Prof" culture prevalent in today’s campuses is the Yelp-ification of academia. It prioritizes ease and entertainment over rigorous intellectual friction. While we argue over whether a school is "WASP-y" or "T20," the actual quality of instruction is often declining. More classes are taught by underpaid adjuncts.
‘We” DCUMers…and most of Americans have traded the "ivory tower" for a "prestige mall." We obsess over the "veneer" because, in a society with diminishing social mobility, that veneer is one of the few things people believe can protect their class status….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many students and parents seem to be chasing trends and the affirmation of others' opinions (veneer of prestige, silly categorizations like "Ivy Plus" or "little ivy" or "T20", arguing about how to create categories within categories: like breaking down small LACS into wasp or +B). Enough. This is too much. College isn't a fashion object or handbag du jour, it's a retreat of learning, period. The professors and their teaching style "rate my prof", course calendars, curriculum core, etc. should be scrutinized instead.

People are focused on impressing each other not on growing.

From a foreigner who has been here for 25 years married to an American with American born kids…..
In most of the world, university is a place you go to get a credential to start a career. In America, college is a four year identity construction project. When grown adults wear college sweatshirts in their 40s, they aren't celebrating an alma mater. They are signaling their tribe, their socio-economic bracket, and their perceived intellectual tier. W re to blame. For a German or a Frenchman, wearing your university hoodie at 45 is as weird as wearing a high school jersey to a board meeting……it simply signals that your period of greatest personal significance ended in your early 20’s………..Americans turned universities into lifestyle brands. All of you, all of us are to blame. This has been a slow process…Since we don't have titles of nobility, "Princeton" or "Stanford" serves as a modern version of a coat of arms. We treat these names like handbags because they are portable markers of status that tell everyone in the room you belong to the "managed class." This is why "Greek life" and massive sports stadiums exist. They provide the social glue and the "experience" that justifies a $400,000 price tag. You aren't paying for the lecture; you're paying for the right to belong to a specific caste.
we use these "silly categorizations" like Ivy Plus or Little Ivy as a form of shorthand for what Pierre Bourdieu called "symbolic capital"…… It’s a way to vet people without actually knowing their character or competence.

Let’s be honest, The idea of universities in 2026 as a "retreat of learning" died when we began funding it through massive individual debt. When a student is a "customer" paying six figures, they don't want to be challenged….they want a return on investment. The professors become service providers. The "Rate My Prof" culture prevalent in today’s campuses is the Yelp-ification of academia. It prioritizes ease and entertainment over rigorous intellectual friction. While we argue over whether a school is "WASP-y" or "T20," the actual quality of instruction is often declining. More classes are taught by underpaid adjuncts.
‘We” DCUMers…and most of Americans have traded the "ivory tower" for a "prestige mall." We obsess over the "veneer" because, in a society with diminishing social mobility, that veneer is one of the few things people believe can protect their class status….

Curious if you are the same person who thrifted the designer bag à la PhD? If not, you should become friends. And I’d like to hang out with both of you.

Shame this place is anonymous. In addition to being low brow entertainment, it occasionally tosses out a gem that makes me wish we not all anonymous here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Louis Vuitton - Ivy League
Balenciaga - NYU
Chanel - WASP
Versace - Miami and USC
Loewe - WASP
Michael Kors - Flagship State Schools
Kate Spade - Colleges that Change Lives
Gucci - Stanford
Dior - Seven Sisters

Birkin - Top NESCAC

IYKYK

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Louis Vuitton - Ivy League
Balenciaga - NYU
Chanel - WASP
Versace - Miami and USC
Loewe - WASP
Michael Kors - Flagship State Schools
Kate Spade - Colleges that Change Lives
Gucci - Stanford
Dior - Seven Sisters

Hermès - MIT
Bottega Veneta - Caltech

[Anonymous]

Loewe - UChicago

[Anonymous]

23:30 I fully agree w you. Because of unparalleled social mobility in the past, this country has always had a majority of people who didn’t grow up on the inside mistaking trappings for the real thing. But the visual nature of the internet, and cult of celebrity, followed by social media, and then AI algorithms etc etc have put all of this into hyperdrive. We are doomed.

Also I would say Ivy = LVMH. Like Cornell can be Tiffany 😂

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course colleges are not handbags. Colleges should be selected based on which provides the best education for your student’s needs and also maximizes the outcomes within the realm of what is possible for your student’s actual potential. For some students, ivies and a few other elites are the only ones that have a peer group that will be appropriately challenging and also leave all the doors open to the most academically intense and/or highly selective careers. If your uber bright student also happens to be fairly undecided, all the more reason to chose an ivy or similar top school.

None of those factors matter for handbag selection. They are quite different processes.

Give me a break. Ivies are name brands and that's why people flock to them. Arguably, Carleton College is more academically challenging than Dartmouth or Penn or Brown, but people don't want to admit that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:it is really really pathetic to brag about your kids college. Especially if you yourself amounted to nothing regardless of pedigree. It is tantamount to compensating for something you lack.

I don’t know people do it with everything.

I drive reliable, cr@p cars according to dcum, but my kids attend Ivies. At least the education has value and is for life. I’m the least “brand” person out there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:it is really really pathetic to brag about your kids college. Especially if you yourself amounted to nothing regardless of pedigree. It is tantamount to compensating for something you lack.

I don’t know people do it with everything.

I drive reliable, cr@p cars according to dcum, but my kids attend Ivies. At least the education has value and is for life. I’m the least “brand” person out there.

Well the $800k it is taking us to put two through Ivies full pay, I could have eight very luxury cars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many students and parents seem to be chasing trends and the affirmation of others' opinions (veneer of prestige, silly categorizations like "Ivy Plus" or "little ivy" or "T20", arguing about how to create categories within categories: like breaking down small LACS into wasp or +B). Enough. This is too much. College isn't a fashion object or handbag du jour, it's a retreat of learning, period. The professors and their teaching style "rate my prof", course calendars, curriculum core, etc. should be scrutinized instead.

People are focused on impressing each other not on growing.

From a foreigner who has been here for 25 years married to an American with American born kids…..
In most of the world, university is a place you go to get a credential to start a career. In America, college is a four year identity construction project. When grown adults wear college sweatshirts in their 40s, they aren't celebrating an alma mater. They are signaling their tribe, their socio-economic bracket, and their perceived intellectual tier. W re to blame. For a German or a Frenchman, wearing your university hoodie at 45 is as weird as wearing a high school jersey to a board meeting……it simply signals that your period of greatest personal significance ended in your early 20’s………..Americans turned universities into lifestyle brands. All of you, all of us are to blame. This has been a slow process…Since we don't have titles of nobility, "Princeton" or "Stanford" serves as a modern version of a coat of arms. We treat these names like handbags because they are portable markers of status that tell everyone in the room you belong to the "managed class." This is why "Greek life" and massive sports stadiums exist. They provide the social glue and the "experience" that justifies a $400,000 price tag. You aren't paying for the lecture; you're paying for the right to belong to a specific caste.
we use these "silly categorizations" like Ivy Plus or Little Ivy as a form of shorthand for what Pierre Bourdieu called "symbolic capital"…… It’s a way to vet people without actually knowing their character or competence.

Let’s be honest, The idea of universities in 2026 as a "retreat of learning" died when we began funding it through massive individual debt. When a student is a "customer" paying six figures, they don't want to be challenged….they want a return on investment. The professors become service providers. The "Rate My Prof" culture prevalent in today’s campuses is the Yelp-ification of academia. It prioritizes ease and entertainment over rigorous intellectual friction. While we argue over whether a school is "WASP-y" or "T20," the actual quality of instruction is often declining. More classes are taught by underpaid adjuncts.
‘We” DCUMers…and most of Americans have traded the "ivory tower" for a "prestige mall." We obsess over the "veneer" because, in a society with diminishing social mobility, that veneer is one of the few things people believe can protect their class status….

I think this thread and this post may be AI generated. Smells like the same “poster” who started the “Half of your kids shouldn’t be in college” thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

From a foreigner who has been here for 25 years married to an American with American born kids…..
In most of the world, university is a place you go to get a credential to start a career. In America, college is a four year identity construction project. When grown adults wear college sweatshirts in their 40s, they aren't celebrating an alma mater. They are signaling their tribe, their socio-economic bracket, and their perceived intellectual tier. W re to blame. For a German or a Frenchman, wearing your university hoodie at 45 is as weird as wearing a high school jersey to a board meeting……it simply signals that your period of greatest personal significance ended in your early 20’s………..Americans turned universities into lifestyle brands. All of you, all of us are to blame. This has been a slow process…Since we don't have titles of nobility, "Princeton" or "Stanford" serves as a modern version of a coat of arms. We treat these names like handbags because they are portable markers of status that tell everyone in the room you belong to the "managed class." This is why "Greek life" and massive sports stadiums exist. They provide the social glue and the "experience" that justifies a $400,000 price tag. You aren't paying for the lecture; you're paying for the right to belong to a specific caste.
we use these "silly categorizations" like Ivy Plus or Little Ivy as a form of shorthand for what Pierre Bourdieu called "symbolic capital"…… It’s a way to vet people without actually knowing their character or competence.

Let’s be honest, The idea of universities in 2026 as a "retreat of learning" died when we began funding it through massive individual debt. When a student is a "customer" paying six figures, they don't want to be challenged….they want a return on investment. The professors become service providers. The "Rate My Prof" culture prevalent in today’s campuses is the Yelp-ification of academia. It prioritizes ease and entertainment over rigorous intellectual friction. While we argue over whether a school is "WASP-y" or "T20," the actual quality of instruction is often declining. More classes are taught by underpaid adjuncts.
‘We” DCUMers…and most of Americans have traded the "ivory tower" for a "prestige mall." We obsess over the "veneer" because, in a society with diminishing social mobility, that veneer is one of the few things people believe can protect their class status….

Couldn’t say better