Reply #70: What you're saying and what he's saying aren't mutually exclusive.

[JoeyT]

If you're getting college students, then you're getting students that have just made it through high school. I think we can all agree most high schools punish independence. So what gets to college are people that managed to conform enough to the system to not get pitched out.
Using my HS as an example, of the top ten standardized test scores in the school within 2 years on either side of me: 1 was expelled, 4 quit, 1 died, 3 didn't have the grades to get scholarships. So of the top ten scores, 1 went on to college. (The guy that got expelled and 2 that quit went on to college, but I'm talking about what the school accomplished.) So we're talking about a system that weeded out 80-90%(allowing for the guy that died) of the brightest before colleges ever see them. And those are the ones that made it far enough to take those tests. It's entirely possible others were weeded out before it got that far. Private schools are even worse than public ones for cracking down on thought.

So I agree with you and Chomsky.