Strong disagree with your characterization. I went to a crunchy liberal arts college in upstate NY. I came in as a republican and left as a libertarian. I went hard left years later after entering the workforce and learning about how the world really works. K-12 did way more damage to my understanding of the world and college didnt really do a lot to change that. The idea that college is some kind of propaganda machine is itself propaganda. Of those who come out liberalized it mostly just has to do with exposure to people from different backgrounds and classes. Said another way, people get disabused of their parochial upbringing which can look like indoctrination from the perspective of small-minded yokels back home.

No, I do not regret my college education. It gave me the tools to understand the world around me, and to be a successful and more complete person. The cost is too high, but what else is true in the US?

Seconding kuhl. They sell cargo pants that look and fit like regular pants should.

I suppose it really depends on what freedoms you consider important and how much you weigh things. It is true, in china, you cant be openly critical of the regime. FWIW, that is increasingly true in the US.

However, in china, you are free to not be killed by violence. You are free to get affordable healthcare. You are free to get affordable high quality food. You are free to get affordable housing (outside of Beijing and a few other financial centers). You are free to get an affordable high quality education. I dunno. There are tradeoffs. The US is increasingly offering less and less by way of substantive freedoms and is becoming more and more authoritarian.

Also, have you actually been to china? How much of what you know about china is based in outdated information from 30 years ago or might just be straight up propaganda? I have been in the last 10 years and it blew my mind and changed a lot about how viewed the country.