For the record I hate affirmative action, but I also hate the notion of having some elite 10 schools everyone strives to get into. You can do just fine going to a state school, and you'll probably have a much more relaxed experienced.

You can also do what I did and hit 100k no degree at all. With all this talk of student loan forgiveness, maybe we need to rethink the role of college.

It doesn't need to be an automatic first step into adulthood, you can learn a great deal working for a few years beforehand.