Tobin Harshaw, Columnist

Will the Class of 2025 Ever Get Over College?

Universities and graduates are trying to put the past behind them, but the (partly self-inflicted) damage is done.

At Harvard’s graduation, the past was present. 

Photographer: Mel Musto/Bloomberg

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“Looking back over a decade,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald, an indifferent student if there ever was one, “one sees the ideal of a university become a myth, a vision, a meadow lark among the smoke stacks.” I’m wondering what image the class of 2025 will see in 2035 as they look back on their remarkably tumultuous undergraduate years.

Will it be standing in defiance of administrators and politicians and police forces in a peaceful exercise of their First Amendment rights? Or standing in support of terrorists who murdered hundreds of people their age at a trance concert?