Because getting into US college is all about compliance, commitment and leverage. This is the ideal person for an ivy league: - Parents moved to an expensive z

Because getting into US college is all about compliance, commitment and leverage. This is the ideal person for an ivy league: - Parents moved to an expensive zip code so kid gets into good schools - Parents and kids deal with lots of bureaucracies. Clubs, pastimes and volunteering... which are all specifically designed to get you into college. These places don't motivate critical thinking. They REQUIRE constant observance of rules and compliance to the rule makers. - Massive student loans for the majority The whole idea is that if someone graduates as a reporter, that person might voluntarily choose to not talk about things like, how we started a war of aggression to further our economic interest. This goes also for the engineer working on the latest westernization of some random object/system. Colleges don't want the best and the brightest. They want the best and the brightest... who are compliant and who have lots invested in the 'system'... commitment leads to leverage. They want 'team players'. They also want to give as much advantage as they can to the existing elites. So... they require things that require money. That way they can say, 'we aren't turning away the best and brightest'... we are just turning away people who are smarter in favor of 'team players' who went to school practice, and ballet, and the model UN, and etc... which are of course out of reach for the average US family.