If I may lend my gen x perspective to this, the push for everyone to go to college began when I was a teenager. Until then, you had two tracks in high school - one was "college bound" the other not. The term "preppy" came from this. If you were on the college prep track, you were a "preppy" and if not you were "normal". The preppy kids were considered the more erudite, elitist, rich kids that were thought of as the exception not the rule.
Sometime when I was growing up, "preppy" became less of an insult and more of a positive thing and school aged society viewed the non preppy kids as "less than". By the time I was a senior in high school if you weren't going to college it was considered a let down. That was in the early 90s.
I'm also GX, the rich kids parents paid for their college, the not rich kids worked and paid for college. It wasn't pushed or expected because you could get really good jobs without degrees. Once the feds got into the game that changed drastically.
If I may lend my gen x perspective to this, the push for everyone to go to college began when I was a teenager. Until then, you had two tracks in high school - one was "college bound" the other not. The term "preppy" came from this. If you were on the college prep track, you were a "preppy" and if not you were "normal". The preppy kids were considered the more erudite, elitist, rich kids that were thought of as the exception not the rule.
Sometime when I was growing up, "preppy" became less of an insult and more of a positive thing and school aged society viewed the non preppy kids as "less than". By the time I was a senior in high school if you weren't going to college it was considered a let down. That was in the early 90s.
I'm also GX, the rich kids parents paid for their college, the not rich kids worked and paid for college. It wasn't pushed or expected because you could get really good jobs without degrees. Once the feds got into the game that changed drastically.