a lot of the following is gonna be about me, i tried not to but i feel like you need to know to see where im coming from.

to be clear, i didnt mean to imply that college is ideal. i was kinda counting on how school before college (or at least before hs) barely has any stakes long term, you’re not there to profit. most people in college don’t really want to be there either, they go for the degree so they can get a good job (theoretically) or just because it’s what they’ve been told to do. i went to community college right before ai took off and i could definitely spot people who cared and people who didn’t, and for me personally (and i imagine most people?) it varied by class, the ones i didn’t like were the ones i was forced to take for my degree and really truly didn’t need. i can fr get into how i’d address this if you want, but it would get really really detailed explaining the whole system. i originally typed and cancelled an addendum to my post suggesting something pretty similar to the start of your third paragraph.

i have kind of a tinfoil hat theory about the thing about how kids want to maximize the amount of time socializing and minimize the amount of time learning, that definitely did cross my mind. i feel like kids are only like that because they’re so burnt out from doing schoolwork they’re not interested in, they’re given an insane amount of work for their age and it would be really strange if they were interested in anything other than relaxing in their little time off. i think when you let a kid get truly recharged and bored, they’ll have an uncontrollable urge to find something that challenges them and makes them feel accomplished. i dropped out in seventh grade and started homeschooling (with very minimal guidance or testing), and i ended up teaching myself a lot of IT just because i was interested in computers, i grew up and did a year and a half in community college for IT and already knew most of the stuff (straight A+s), got certs really easy, the point is i think i got a way better education simply by not going to high school, and i had friends in similar situations who had similar outcomes. i was rotting when i was in school, i only started learning when i dropped out. most people will never witness a kid actually free to explore what they want to, you spend every weekend and summer recovering from school, then you spend every weekend after that recovering from work.