Entitled Education?

It's incredulous to me how fracking entitled people have become.  Everyone one expects something for nothing and expects that something to come from someone else.  How did this happen?

Look at our education system.  (Don't look too closely or you'll notice how FUBAR it is.)  Students, and I suppose their parents, expect a free education that turns them into six-figure salary Nobel laureates.  WTF?!

OK, it's important for me to point out that I paid for almost every credit of my post-High School education (I have a PhD) as well as my living expenses since I was 20.  I worked and went to school.  I took time off from school to save money so I could afford to return.  I took out loans (which 12yrs later I am still paying off). Oh, and my parents were only high school graduates; so it's not like I had a silver spoon growing up.

How is it we've become a nation that feels entitled to an education beyond High School?  How is it that everyone deserves to go to college? I can tell you first hand that there are many students being admitted to university that don't belong there.  Sorry kids, you're just not smart enough.  I'm not commenting on how poorly you were educated.  I'm stating quite plainly that you don't have the brain power be be at university.  And don't even get me started on how poorly students are prepared by the public school system to engage in the sort of intellectual exercise that SHOULD occur at the university level.  Classes are being dumbed down to meet the inability of students to rise up to the intellectual challenge.  Grading is being softened to avoid negative instructor evaluations and to not upset the student or the parent.  Support programs with little evidence that they do anything other than look and sound good are financed to assist students who need assistance (< generalization...there are some good ones).

We are doing these kids and ourselves a huge disservice by maintaining the idea that "everyone deserves an education beyond high school."  That is just not true.  Everyone deserves an "opportunity."  But having an opportunity to compete and actually winning are two very different things.  So you say the playing field is not level? OK, I'll buy that.  Then let's fix the playing field, not give everyone a trophy.

If we don't fix this issue (and also reinvigorate interests in the trades) we won't be on top for much longer and will be speaking Mandarin in about 20 years.