1. public universities are great. no one is saying they're harvard great, but if you pick and choose according to your program, you can graduate with a degree from a well established and silver-tier prestige major.
2. pre-college education is a f**k mess because of testing. the only memories i have between fourth and eighth grade are all the standardized tests i had to take. and there were an assload of them. the best was the last one i took in eighth grade where the school paid two people to take over our english class for an entire quarter to teach us how to take the test. that's 10 weeks where i didn't learn shit all to take a test that is pointless. too much teaching for tests, not enough teaching relevant shit.