I think it's just that privileged 20-year olds are the best material with which elites can build the next generation to replace themselves and thus the system i

I think it's just that privileged 20-year olds are the best material with which elites can build the next generation to replace themselves and thus the system in which they are embedded. Young Ivy Leaguers are also the basic building material of traditional business' executive corps, the CIA, the FBI, the military officer Corp, McKensie, and so on. In past centuries, these kids would be sent to manage imperial affairs in the Raj or something. There are good reasons for this: their parents were last season's elites and want to pass it on, their classmates will likely be good contacts in other elite institutions, and they've already been trained to please establishment figures enthusiastically (or they wouldn't be Stanford wiz kids). Not to sound like a crank, but information technology is now (and, really, has been since it's inception) an important theater in the class war, and elites are recruiting for it the same way they always have.