Even by the standards of our shitty little country the Yanks really go hard on full on indoctrination at high school. Pledge of allegience, that recent thread about fucked up christian fundamentalists having abstinence only ed. And christian study groups. They get brainwashed through their shitty curriculum and hidden curriculum massively. Then the poor fucks get unceremoniously thrown into the gaping maw of a collapsing, brutal capitalist economy. It’s no wonder high school is something they clutch on to like a life raft, whether they hated it or loved it.