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Notes -
I mean, I'd actually bet that in 2024, the life of say, a 19-year old female psychology major at a mid-tier state school (aka, the average American college student) is actually less hedonistic in many ways the median non-college educated 19-year old in the United States, working a low wage job.
Also, well I'd question the actual type of person you described actually has the qualities you describe of if it's all anecdotal just-so stories based on cultural preference, the reality is by time those rural farm kids hit 40, it's extremely likely the supposedly hedonistic college kids are ahead of them by every standard that matters, including a lot of hedonistic measures, outside of those that increasingly smaller amounts of social conservatives care about deeply - ie. how many kids you have.
Now, I do think in reality, the actual best preforming person is probably the type of person much of this comment section would despise - a serious female high school athlete who goes to college but stops playing athletics and ends up being the type of corporate girlboss that has her eggs frozen at 40, but is married and successful economically, and indeed, probably doesn't have much of a hedonistic life unless not having as many children as you can is now considered hedonistic.
I mean college kids especially from upper class homes are often able to leverage social networking to get themselves in good positions to eventually get hired. Even if you’re a fuckup, having played dozens of games of beer pong with the son of a business owner is going to get you a leg up. That isn’t because playing beer pong is less hedonistic, but because frat life introduces you to your social peers who will eventually put in a good word for you.
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He's talking about a specific subset of people who were able to take responsibility for themselves thanks to how their environment was structured, why are you responding like he meant all people earning a low wage?
Don't a lot of the latter grow up in exactly the environment you're advocating for, anyway?
The specific context of the hedonic lifestyle described by the OP is this: "The dorm is paid by his parents, as is his meal plan and so on. She can do whatever she wants with time not spent studying."
Compared to this, the "median non-college educated 19-year old in the United States, working a low wage job" is, of course, not hedonistic, because she (let's assume it's a woman) claims responsibility for herself and supports herself, and holds down a full-time job (we can assume).
That's a good point as well.
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