require Ivy League credentials
My god, one of my best friends is a lawyer and his credentials were his single most important thing for him. He did start out at a shitty little community college for 4 years and then went to two great ivy league schools to make his name. He even went to Dubai for an unpaid internship relating to his field, and he's Thai and Thai people are literally slave labor there so he was terrified he'd get abducted and forced into labor. That's dedication.
But yeah, I bought into the fancy expensive university thing at first. I went to Pepperdine my first semester, then left when I realized how retarded their computer science program was. That one semester there cost more than the rest of my 4.5 years at the other university
That's the right idea. University itself isn't a scam (although prices are inflated right now), but there are ways of doing it that are a really bad idea, and we need to stop telling 18 year olds to follow your dreams, go to whichever place you feel called, etc. Certain majors offer poor return on investment, and certain schools do as well. Once you're a few years into your career nobody will care where you went, and there isn't any difference between expensive private school vs cheap in state public. It might be a good idea to stop perpetuating the myth that college is a ticket to prosperity: it's really all about what marketable skills you have, and it just so happens that in some circumstances college can be a good place to pick up those skills.
Of course certain careers (e.g. investment banking, consulting, big firm lawyer, etc) will require Ivy League credentials, but that isn't relevant for most people.