The "dream" is to immerse in learning while being surrounded by a critical mass of intelligent, driven, and most importantly well-connected people. There's a reason a large majority of the top entrepreneurs seem to have come from the same set of schools.
Sam Altman - Stanford
Paul Graham - Harvard, Cornell
Jeff Bezos - Princeton
Larry Page - Stanford
Peter Thiel, who despite his current ideological stance, also went to Stanford
We all know about the exceptions, sure - but they are exceptions. Most of the top ones (Google your favorite entrepreneurs aside from the well known ones like Zuck, Jobs, and Gates) - most of them have prestigious backgrounds, and those without do much worse:
Now, I've read Graham's (http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html) essay about this, which is interesting for the subset of people who happen to apply to YC, but it doesn't touch on the main point: that a top-tier institution where you can be completely immersed, be surrounded by incredible people you can network with, and not think about paying rent gives you astronomical advantages. I don't think there's really any credible debate around this particular point. You can't do that while you're working; immersion happens only when you can truly focus. If you're thinking about rent, food, bills, etc. you're not focusing. You're also not going to get the kind of network at a state school - you might get lucky, but for spending 4-6 years of your life, that's a huge gamble on top of the money you're spending. I've tried to work while going to school once, and it ended in disaster (it can wreck your physical health, mental health, and knowledge retention. It's awful, and those of you you have done it, I applaud you, but not everyone has what it takes to do that.)
To your third point: that's the excuse we use to tell everyone they should suck it up and be happy with what they have, and it's awful. You go down that ladder, and you're telling people who "only" get beat up once a week that they should be happy not getting shot. The benchmark we should be using is the world we'd like to create, not "at least you can eat." Come on.
That all said, I appreciate your comment even I disagree with you. I know you don't have answers, nor does anyone else here (but if someone does, of course I'd love to hear about it!) I certainly don't expect that. I know the state of things. I came here to vent and commiserate. I'm angry, and I'm envious. That's all.
"The "dream" is to immerse in learning while being surrounded by a critical mass of intelligent, driven, and most importantly well-connected people. There's a reason a large majority of the top entrepreneurs seem to have come from the same set of schools."
One thing I am having a hard time grasping with your description of your desire is, what is the end goal? Do you want to learn amazing things about an academic area that you really enjoy? Do you want to meet well connected people? Do you want to be a fantastic top entrepreneur? Because these are all pretty mutually exclusive. I did not go to a top university but I do know well connected people and I am a relatively successful entrepreneur (not a top entrepreneur by any means). I will try to give my background as an example.
As I youth, due in large part to my fathers mathematics background, I gained a love of theoretical mathematics. I was top of my class in high school and graduated early. I went to college and got scared about an academic career, due again mostly to my father who was an entrepreneur and engineer. So I switched majors a few times and landed on law. I dropped out of law school to be an entrepreneur and engineer myself, with the ultimate goal to support my rapidly growing family.
By worldly standards I was raised relatively well off in Southern California but I am no Bezos, Graham, nor Page. I went to state schools and have a non-technical degree. I have started and been successful in two companies, work for myself as a consultant now, and all things considered do exceptionally well. But a few years ago my goal of supporting my family became easier (success in business helps a lot) I got the itch to get back into academia. I have been doing "amateur" theoretical mathematics research for fun for years, and I haven't felt fulfilled in business or engineering in quite a while. So I came up with a plan.
Step one, while I would love to go to MIT or Cal Tech, I don't see that ever happening. So, go back to a state school and become very familiar with the staff there. I found that most of them DID go to those prestigious schools and studied under phenomenal professors and have amazing knowledge and interesting theoretical mathematician and physics. They also have amazing contacts to share. So I am working on receiving a bachelors in mathematics, then a masters, then a PhD from those folks, and really enjoy the experience.
Second step (concurrent to first), continue to do well in my business areas (mostly B2B application development consulting as well as some recurring revenue products). Will I get Graham/Bezos/Gates rich? Heck no! But I can get enough to make my third step and ultimate goal possible.
Step three, through the local university fund my own theoretical mathematics research. Why? Because I really enjoy mathematics research. And funding for theoretical mathematics research is REALLY hard to obtain, there isn't much of it, and there are some really brilliant minds in the field who deserve it. So, I use step two to fund step three.
The point is, I saw what I wanted and I found a way to get to it. I have very specific steps around each of those steps (step two, for example, is far more complex than I have written out here, and has milestones and subgoals). But it is working and I can pursue my academic dreams while also supporting my family and myself well.
That all being said, I understand my steps might not work specifically for you. As you mention, you need focus for academic discovery. All of our brains work differently and I have been blessed to be able to do these things concurrently. But the more important point is, if you have a goal, make steps and work to get to it. You may find that by making steps to get to your ultimate goal, you have to change that goal slightly (as with me, I will never work at MIT or Cal Tech). But you'll still find the satisfaction of making it, lose the anger and the envy, and ultimately be happier than you are.
My goals would be for getting deep knowledge in an area of study, more than I'm able to do on my own. After becoming an expert in that area, I would like to apply that to business. Examples: MIT robotics->start robotics company / work with roboticists at an existing company or Columbia Computer Science and Logistics and Supply Chain Optimization->start a company optimizing delivery/pickup routes for delivery drivers and providing 'deep' dashboards to monitor and reroute as needed. Also, I would invite everyone to look at this comment from Clare Corthell from Mattermark for something closely related, and important:
The thing that spurred me to write this was the realization that there are probably hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people in this country that could be making incredible contributions to science, technology, business, and society in general, but don't have the ability to realize that potential. It's one of those funny things where understanding you have a problem, even at a detailed level, does not imbue you with the tools to fix it. I think that's what makes me the angriest. Society should be falling over trying to help people push things ahead, contribute to the advancement of society (I read that some countries pay people to go to college), but instead it tells you 'have rich parents, go into incredible debt, be a lucky unicorn, or tough luck.' How many other people are sitting around doing some dreary job that does little (like the ad clicks example), who, if given the resources, would provide society (and themselves) with so much more? It's a colossal waste.
Hammerbacher's quote resonated with me when I first read it, but now it really hits home: "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads," Hammerbacher once said. "That sucks."
I really appreciate your comment. That's the sort of response I was hoping for. Other people who have experienced this, and what they did/are doing. Thank you.
Sam Altman - Stanford Paul Graham - Harvard, Cornell Jeff Bezos - Princeton Larry Page - Stanford Peter Thiel, who despite his current ideological stance, also went to Stanford
We all know about the exceptions, sure - but they are exceptions. Most of the top ones (Google your favorite entrepreneurs aside from the well known ones like Zuck, Jobs, and Gates) - most of them have prestigious backgrounds, and those without do much worse:
http://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Entrepreneurs-do-be...
Now, I've read Graham's (http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html) essay about this, which is interesting for the subset of people who happen to apply to YC, but it doesn't touch on the main point: that a top-tier institution where you can be completely immersed, be surrounded by incredible people you can network with, and not think about paying rent gives you astronomical advantages. I don't think there's really any credible debate around this particular point. You can't do that while you're working; immersion happens only when you can truly focus. If you're thinking about rent, food, bills, etc. you're not focusing. You're also not going to get the kind of network at a state school - you might get lucky, but for spending 4-6 years of your life, that's a huge gamble on top of the money you're spending. I've tried to work while going to school once, and it ended in disaster (it can wreck your physical health, mental health, and knowledge retention. It's awful, and those of you you have done it, I applaud you, but not everyone has what it takes to do that.)
To your third point: that's the excuse we use to tell everyone they should suck it up and be happy with what they have, and it's awful. You go down that ladder, and you're telling people who "only" get beat up once a week that they should be happy not getting shot. The benchmark we should be using is the world we'd like to create, not "at least you can eat." Come on.
That all said, I appreciate your comment even I disagree with you. I know you don't have answers, nor does anyone else here (but if someone does, of course I'd love to hear about it!) I certainly don't expect that. I know the state of things. I came here to vent and commiserate. I'm angry, and I'm envious. That's all.