On "Selling Out"

Gen Z—a generation of environmentalists, individualists, and breakers of the status quo—seem to have succumbed to the very expectations they rail against. While the “Gen Z” that pervades the American imagination is filled with youth who drive social change, the data reveals that Gen Z students are rather corporate-minded. Visions of prestigious corporate careers steadily claim more and more students at elite colleges, who eschew their “niche” interests in the humanities and social sciences, which may even have gained them admission, for majors in economics, finance, or computer science. According to The New York Times, the share of 2024 Harvard graduates going into finance and consulting is 34 percent. In 2020, it was about half. This pivot, a quiet and sudden embrace of  more “lucrative” fields, has been termed “selling out.”  

Lawrentians are uniquely privy to these patterns. The lucky few who trickle from boarding school into top colleges adorn their resumes with “uncommon” interests. Some drop their demonstrated passion for poetry in the first weeks of freshman year, “securing the bag” as a newly-minted economics major. A prestige-oriented mindset may surface even earlier than we usually worry about. Some ambitious middle schoolers optimize their extracurriculars for prestigious secondary schools, then optimize their high school years to gain admission to prestigious universities, finally tailoring their college careers to prestigious jobs which will follow. Prestige, once just a factor which attracted some applicants, is now the sole purpose of higher education. 

Additionally, societal pressure has grown “a herd mentality” among students, as 21-year-old Harvard junior Joshua Parker put it in an interview for The New York Times. “If you’re not doing finance or tech, it can feel like you’re doing something wrong.” The campus atmosphere convinces those hesitant to pursue a career in finance or consulting that their original ambitions jeopardize their bid for wealth, happiness, and a secure career—even if those assumptions are entirely unfounded or overly optimistic. Consider the over-saturated field of software engineering and other computer science-related jobs. 

Furthermore, Lawrenceville students feel intensely pressured to use their expensive education to choose a job or career path that makes a lot of money, as opposed to “throwing away” the opportunities the world expects Lawrenceville graduates to have seized at every step.  

“Selling out” is appealing in its security. Students on pre-professional tracks like finance, economics, consulting, and technology look forward to less hazy career paths than those who pursued humanities fields. Most of these aspiring pre-professionals assume they can list the career prospects of a philosophy major on one hand. 

Instead of completely abandoning their passions, some introduce themselves to “selling out” by pushing their passions to a later date of financial stability, or “making the bag.” Get rich, then write the novel. Get rich, then start the world-changing non-profit. The I’ll do it later mindset also applies to effective altruism, or how students can make the greatest impact to help others. “Better than becoming a public defender. Better than campaigning for your favorite politician. Better even than starting your own nonprofit,” Chanden Climaco writes in The Harvard Crimson, is “selling out.” He argues that attending an elite school provides students the unique privilege of fast-tracking into massively profitable jobs: “if you attend Harvard…you aren’t just anyone, especially in the eyes of employers drooling over the college on your degree,” he writes. He encourages students to use that privilege, ride the finance wave, and “sell out.” Make millions, and then, make a difference. 

But when is enough, enough? In her New York Times article, Francesca Mari likened the transition to a prestige escalator: “walking away can feel funny. Like, well, walking off an escalator.” Human greed is not an easy thing to subdue, especially when it comes to money. After becoming accustomed to a certain salary and life-style, why would one throw that away?

The label “sell out” is a surface-level pejorative. For some, “sell-out culture” might be more accurately termed “pragmatic culture.” One should acknowledge pursuing passion is a privilege. Not everyone has the resources and connections to know that after college, they can risk not having a job from the get-go. That being said, many wealthy students who already benefit from a strong network or trust fund to fall back on will also “sellout” after getting into college. Though a necessity for some, “selling out” becomes a deeply individualist matter for those with the freedom to study any discipline they desire. While students may not authentically enjoy sellout disciplines, the prospect of a  six-figure salary at Goldman Sachs ultimately trumps any other consideration (because philanthropy and social justice come later, right?).

As these students switch their majors in droves, the loss of poetry enthusiasts and classics nerds effectively dismantles a major point of college: to house a diversity of perspectives and interests and spark meaningful educational experiences across perspectives and academic fields. When taken to the extreme, and everyone hops on the “econ” train, college students become not independent thinkers, but sheep. This trend can also halt innovation, stopping new disciplines and industries before they get forged. Higher education aims to create ground-breakers and world-changers. While more convenient, and while likely more profitable, “selling out” threatens the virtue of education as a whole.