Jonathan Zimmerman: Colleges as Country Clubs

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. He is the author of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory."

My daughter is a junior in high school, so I've spent part of this spring making that upper-middle-class pilgrimage known as "the college tour."

But as we were led across sweeping lawns by tour guides walking backward, I found myself thinking less about my daughter's looming college experience and more about how different her life will be after she graduates.

I've also been thinking about "Girls," the television series about four young women trying to make ends meet in New York. Three of them are depicted as recent graduates of Oberlin, which is also the alma mater of "Girls" creator and lead actress Lena Dunham.

And if you take a look at Oberlin, or at almost any college or university, you'll get a good idea of why these "girls" are struggling in the real world. Put simply, today's American colleges shower students with absurdly lavish bills of goods and services. No wonder it's so hard for them to pay their own bills when they get out....