Good news: The higher-ed-parenting industrial complex has imploded

As a mom of teenagers and a feminist I am so here for it. But the macroeconomic fallout will be harsh.

These days my favorite reading are news coverage documenting the implosion of the house of cards that is higher education.

My kids are aged 15 and 17 — 10th and 12th graders — and I cannot tell you how welcome and necessary this cultural lightning bolt is, especially for upper-middle-class, white, educated parents like me who are especially guilty of perpetuating and benefiting from this crisis. I find this enormously, orgasmically freeing — like popping a pimple of pent-up insanity that is now proving, finally, to have net negative outcomes for kids, schools, communities, parents and the adults those children will become. Gender equality also stands to benefit.

So many of us have bought into the assumption that it is our right and duty to leverage everything in our power from before birth to ensure our children were on a path for maximum development of frontal lobes, elementary school resumes and sports/music/math skills with the singular end-goal of entrance into the best possible un…