Hussar
Legend
One of the great ironies of the US is that people who live in Washington DC have no real direct representation in the Federal government, but have to pay taxes just the same. (Technically, DC is separate from any state, so they have no senators or members of congress).
A couple months ago, I had a thread up about teenagers and responsibility. I wonder if the way High School is now handled in the US (used to be very like European Colleges), has any effect on that. Graduating High School used to be an accomplishment. When I was there, all you needed was a pulse and moderate attendance. Grades didn't matter unless you were going to college. No, really. Grades didn't matter. You could fail every class, have a parent go in a bitch that it wasn't fair, and if necessary, the principal would change the grades. All the exchange students used to laugh about how easy the classes were, but how convoluted and petty the culture was.
On the flip side, here in Japan and Korea too, high school is insanely difficult. And I mean insane. My students would be going to extra classes at 5 am then go to school all day then back to juku until about 10 pm. Saturdays too.
But uni is a joke. I actually had students complain about getting 80% in my class because that was a terrible grade. Graduation requires little more than attendance and I've had several students who had never written more than about 500 words at a time.