You seem to be missing that, despite telling the truth (or what I feel to be the truth anyway) in a brutal way, the speech manages to be quite motivational. It

You seem to be missing that, despite telling the truth (or what I feel to be the truth anyway) in a brutal way, the speech manages to be quite motivational. It is to me anyway. I think it is no mistake if one of the most highly regarded commencement speech is that of David Foster Wallace (aka "The Truth With A Whole Lot Of Rhetorical Bullshit Pared Away"): http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/david-foster-wallace-in-his-own-words http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/david-foster-wallace-in... Also, I have received the "50% attrition" comments (I'm from Belgium). In our computer science class, it was more like 70% attrition. But consider that a big difference is that in our countries, getting in a university is not "achievement". You can litteraly just walk in there and if you can't afford the 1K euros a year it costs, the government will pay for you. This is a good thing -- but it needs no one will tell you that you deserve anything. Neither should it be the case in the US because most of the time, access to these universities are conditioned by factors that are largely out of the student direct control.