The college craze looks different depending on the zip code.

This financial weight changes the college experience itself. Students are under immense pressure to choose "practical" majors—STEM, business, economics—often at the expense of the humanities or the arts. The "craze" has squeezed the exploration out of education. The romanticized image of the college student pondering philosophy under an oak tree has been replaced by the stressed undergrad frantically networking to secure an internship that will help pay off the loans they took out to be there.