Certainly your conclusions and observations are accurate for many. However you have to account for the extremely smart people (who are over represented in the

Certainly your conclusions and observations are accurate for many. However you have to account for the extremely smart people (who are over represented in the Ivy League) who realize (or perceive, depending on your perspective) that "success" in life isn't measured by how much money you make, how prestigious a position you hold or how much "respected" people in society value how you choose to pass the time. I've befriended a lot of extremely smart people who got degrees from Ivy League schools, held very prestigious jobs, made a lot of money and were well-respected by the upper echelons of society. Many of them have worked from dawn until dusk since they left school, are now in their 50s, and are starting to realize that all the money in the world can't bring back the 30 years they wasted pushing the wheel. Who is to judge that living in a shack on the beach is a less fulfilling and happy existence than making $30 million dollars a year being the CEO of Raytheon and profiting off of destruction, sitting in a cubicle punching out code or working as some other functionary making a good salary?