I would disagree with this statement. My kids are 13 and 18 and are both acutely aware of what is going on in the world right now. They have friends who know that their parents are struggling and that they likely won't be able to afford to go to college, something that they had previously been told was absolutely necessary.

When I was a kid, I barely knew what was going on in my friend's lives. Today they are all on Discord, etc, and they talk. A lot.

They absolutely know what's going on in the world. It weighs on them.

My story is certainly different than most, but

Many kids in my high school had to make tough decisions around college – weighing the universities they could get into against the costs of said universities

The classmates who decided to do pre-med in-state versus out of state to get better tuition because a full doctor’s education is expensive

The few who got into Ivy leagues but ultimately decided against it because they got some financial aid, but not enough

The ones who graduated college and decided to get into consulting not because it was their passion, but because it paid well.

Even harder is when these kids’ parents are not well equipped to help make these tough decisions, because they never had to make them themselves.

You can suspend it for quite a while, but at some point reality kinda sets in and you’re faced with tough decisions.