Actually you know what? Separate thought. The way we think about college as a life changing experience here in America is all about recognizing people's human needs, but then squishing those needs down to four years of your life where you get them satisfied, followed by a return to "the real world".
Like you know how we talk about "walkable communities"? American culture positions them as, for many people, a temporary luxury. You spend four years at college and then you get a job in an office park and a house in a cul-de-sac. You walk the streets of Disneyland on vacation, then you go home. It's kind of like the old folk traditions of the rich and poor switching places for one day of the year, and then the rest of the year you deal with what you've got and you don't ask for more.
