Comment by flakiness
19 days ago
In Japan's heyday (late 1990s), college life was described similarly (modulo the Internet), and it was said that American college students worked hard to graduate successfully. So this can be a symptom of the US's economic success — such an irony.
College students in today's declining Japan are working harder than ever before, and they're complaining about their parents' (now grandparents?) generation's broken understanding of the reality of college life.
Am I parsing this wrong? The perception is that Americans have _never_ worked hard to graduate successfully, including in the '80s. We were supposed to get beat by our Japanese betters because they were so studious!
They worked hard (long) once they entered the workforce. My understanding is that the college was considered as like a bachelor party.
It was their parents who worked really hard and they didn't go college. It was peak blue collar.