I don't think that's it.

There's definitely a kind of frenetic adversity in the whole college admissions process, at least for kids who are inclined to go that route. If anything, it has gotten much worse over the past 30 years; it's much more stressful than it used to be, and it's easy for teens to imagine that every little thing carries high stakes.

If by "adversity" you mean helping the family put food on the table, I certainly agree that there's less of that. Today we have more weird, more detached, and less rational forms of adversity.

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lotsofpulp 4 days ago | parent [-]

I think it’s a broader awareness of a K shaped socioeconomic trajectory, that the odds of an upward trajectory drop considerably if you don’t follow the standard path into a top 20 university, metro, etc. as economic opportunities continue to agglomerate.

	▲	kjkjadksj 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		What gives me pause with that take is that it only really applies to certain geographical regions of the country. I grew up in a place where today you can still get a starter home for about 100k. The nicest homes, akin to the Home Alone house, on the market are around 500k or less. You don’t need a glamorous job to be a homeowner here, to own a couple cars on the comparatively cheap insurance rates, to send your kid to the very competent in state university. It is still the same break it has always had since the region is stagnant in population. Ironically the lack of growth actually helps the people when you consider the affordability it offers. However the mass media is blind to this region, you won’t hear about it save for browbeating over 1950s population counts, missing the point entirely of what that really means in practice for the people who live there. K shaped economy doesn’t just refer to class, but of geography. There is a hidden line out of the middle of that K going dead straight.