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EXACTLY. This notion that gen y is some sort of elightend urban dweller is ridiculous. Gen y is the most immature gen ever in American history. They treat colle

EXACTLY. This notion that gen y is some sort of elightend urban dweller is ridiculous. Gen y is the most immature gen ever in American history. They treat college like a party, an excuse to extend childish behavior, and just throw the bill on some low interest student loans. No wonder they all rent, their credit is terrible. And then they don't get that 80k job handed to them, so they still work at Starbucks at 26yrs old with a BA in pyschology or poli sci, which they took because the classes were easy. I agree, its all about having kids and growing up. Once your children become your priority, your school district becomes important, and every major urban center in the USA has a school system somewhere between bad and god-awful. Watch the movies Waiting For Superman and The Cartel if you want to see what a mess that situation is. I don't see it getting resolved in the next 5-10 years, which is when gen y will start having kids.

novalis 14y ago
I am certain "having kids" is not a prerequisite for maturity. I know a lot of younger people that are from said gen y age and they aren't one group that can be defined by any of what you postulate. Projecting the errors of past generations on the adapting younger generations isn't very helpful in general. That is the sort of ego stroke that brought us to this point. One of many. Contact your legislators for any solve-all plan you have that will "fix" the costly inept educational system. As for your impositions or projections on others path through life, save them, it looks like they generate a lot of passive aggressiveness in you already.
icebraining 14y ago
Sorry, I downvoted you by mistake:|
datasage 14y ago
While I agree there are schools that are terrible, student success is not solely the responsibly of the school. A child that is in a stable home environment that values education and exploration can probably do just as much as a good school can. Now we tend to self segregate and choose to live in places with people like us. As professionals choose to live in cities instead of suburbs, schools around them will likely be better funded.
- hkarthik 14y ago
  Once you're a parent, you'll worry about two things with regards to school choices: 1) Curriculum 2) Safety It's one thing to make the argument that most public schools are mediocre and the parents need to be more involved in their kids lives to make sure they stay focused and do well. But it's quite another to willingly send your kids to a school with drugs, gang violence, and an abundance of teen pregnancies just because you don't want to commute to work every day.
  - _delirium 14y ago
    There's nothing inherently placing good schools in the suburbs and bad ones in the urban areas, though. These things historically have shifted in many cities, in respond to a wide range of things like housing stock. For example, in NYC the center has gentrified; most of the slummy areas of Manhattan are now desirable to live in. While areas that used to be quiet and suburban in Queens and the Bronx have ended up being sketchy, in a sort of inversion. In most of Europe that's also happened; if you can help it, you don't want to send your kid to a school district in the Paris suburbs, if there's any way you can manage to get them into a good urban district. As a different example, Houston is developing into a strange multiple-rings shape. The city center is gentrifying (medical center, Rice area, downtown), while the inner suburbs are going downhill as the housing stock gets older (60s/70s-construction suburban neighborhoods aren't looking so good anymore), and then really far away suburbs with newer construction (20+ miles, 1990s-present housing stock) are upscale again.
    - Lewisham 14y ago
      You sound like you're describing the LA area (with the exception of the city center gentrifying). It seems that what has happened is that, for the majority of American cities, they grew as an either/or option: you're either in the city, or you're in the suburbs, and the car enabled that in cities where it could. The cities which were geographically constrained, such as NYC or SF, were unable to sprawl outwards, and have commutes within reason, so the middle-classes stayed. That means things like good schools are able to exist because the demand was always there from the middle classes that didn't leave.
_delirium 14y ago
Well, I can think of nothing better than responding to some lazy stereotyping in one direction with some lazy stereotyping in the other direction...
nitrogen 14y ago
They treat college like a party, an excuse to extend childish behavior Are you sure this is a recent phenomenon? Just two examples I'm aware of: 1978: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077975/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077975/ 1985: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089886/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089886/
- sbierwagen 14y ago
  Pointless addendum: Animal House was made in 1978, but set in 1961. Rolling Stone recently ran an article on the fratboy culture at Dartmouth: (the university "Faber College" was based on) http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/confessions-of-an-ivy-league-frat-boy-inside-dartmouths-hazing-abuses-20120328?print=true http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/confessions-of-an-i...
  - gammarator 14y ago
    "The Real Animal House" [1] is also worth a read--it's about the Dartmouth fraternity experiences of one of the authors of Animal House. Somehow it makes the recreational vomiting seem more fun than the Rolling Stone article. (It was amazing and disturbing how many of the "traditions" described in the book are mentioned in the Rolling Stone article, 50 years later...) [1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Real-Animal-House-Fraternity/dp/B00375LO4Q/ http://www.amazon.com/The-Real-Animal-House-Fraternity/dp/B0...
danking00 14y ago
Can you back up any of this with statistics? My anecdotal, local information shows people highly motivated to do things outside of the University and heading to upper 5 or 6 figure salaries at tech start ups, financial firms, and established software and engineering companies. I also see students pursuing advanced degrees in Physics, Math, and other sciences who truly want to do research that expands our understanding of the world. Do I think we're "some sort of elightend [sic] urban dweller"? No. But I certainly am skeptical that we any more immature than the generations before us, of the generations to come.

novalis 14y ago

I am certain "having kids" is not a prerequisite for maturity. I know a lot of younger people that are from said gen y age and they aren't one group that can be defined by any of what you postulate. Projecting the errors of past generations on the adapting younger generations isn't very helpful in general. That is the sort of ego stroke that brought us to this point. One of many. Contact your legislators for any solve-all plan you have that will "fix" the costly inept educational system. As for your impositions or projections on others path through life, save them, it looks like they generate a lot of passive aggressiveness in you already.

icebraining 14y ago

Sorry, I downvoted you by mistake:|

datasage 14y ago

While I agree there are schools that are terrible, student success is not solely the responsibly of the school. A child that is in a stable home environment that values education and exploration can probably do just as much as a good school can. Now we tend to self segregate and choose to live in places with people like us. As professionals choose to live in cities instead of suburbs, schools around them will likely be better funded.

hkarthik 14y ago
Once you're a parent, you'll worry about two things with regards to school choices: 1) Curriculum 2) Safety It's one thing to make the argument that most public schools are mediocre and the parents need to be more involved in their kids lives to make sure they stay focused and do well. But it's quite another to willingly send your kids to a school with drugs, gang violence, and an abundance of teen pregnancies just because you don't want to commute to work every day.
- _delirium 14y ago
  There's nothing inherently placing good schools in the suburbs and bad ones in the urban areas, though. These things historically have shifted in many cities, in respond to a wide range of things like housing stock. For example, in NYC the center has gentrified; most of the slummy areas of Manhattan are now desirable to live in. While areas that used to be quiet and suburban in Queens and the Bronx have ended up being sketchy, in a sort of inversion. In most of Europe that's also happened; if you can help it, you don't want to send your kid to a school district in the Paris suburbs, if there's any way you can manage to get them into a good urban district. As a different example, Houston is developing into a strange multiple-rings shape. The city center is gentrifying (medical center, Rice area, downtown), while the inner suburbs are going downhill as the housing stock gets older (60s/70s-construction suburban neighborhoods aren't looking so good anymore), and then really far away suburbs with newer construction (20+ miles, 1990s-present housing stock) are upscale again.
  - Lewisham 14y ago
    You sound like you're describing the LA area (with the exception of the city center gentrifying). It seems that what has happened is that, for the majority of American cities, they grew as an either/or option: you're either in the city, or you're in the suburbs, and the car enabled that in cities where it could. The cities which were geographically constrained, such as NYC or SF, were unable to sprawl outwards, and have commutes within reason, so the middle-classes stayed. That means things like good schools are able to exist because the demand was always there from the middle classes that didn't leave.

_delirium 14y ago

Well, I can think of nothing better than responding to some lazy stereotyping in one direction with some lazy stereotyping in the other direction...

nitrogen 14y ago

They treat college like a party, an excuse to extend childish behavior Are you sure this is a recent phenomenon? Just two examples I'm aware of: 1978: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077975/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077975/ 1985: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089886/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089886/

sbierwagen 14y ago
Pointless addendum: Animal House was made in 1978, but set in 1961. Rolling Stone recently ran an article on the fratboy culture at Dartmouth: (the university "Faber College" was based on) http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/confessions-of-an-ivy-league-frat-boy-inside-dartmouths-hazing-abuses-20120328?print=true http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/confessions-of-an-i...
- gammarator 14y ago
  "The Real Animal House" [1] is also worth a read--it's about the Dartmouth fraternity experiences of one of the authors of Animal House. Somehow it makes the recreational vomiting seem more fun than the Rolling Stone article. (It was amazing and disturbing how many of the "traditions" described in the book are mentioned in the Rolling Stone article, 50 years later...) [1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Real-Animal-House-Fraternity/dp/B00375LO4Q/ http://www.amazon.com/The-Real-Animal-House-Fraternity/dp/B0...

danking00 14y ago

Can you back up any of this with statistics? My anecdotal, local information shows people highly motivated to do things outside of the University and heading to upper 5 or 6 figure salaries at tech start ups, financial firms, and established software and engineering companies. I also see students pursuing advanced degrees in Physics, Math, and other sciences who truly want to do research that expands our understanding of the world. Do I think we're "some sort of elightend [sic] urban dweller"? No. But I certainly am skeptical that we any more immature than the generations before us, of the generations to come.