Homecoming Courts at Universities

I am unaware of Homecoming traditions in countries outside the U.S. (if the event even exists), so this is completely in reference to U.S.American traditions.

Most everyone in the country has attended high school.  Remember Homecoming?  The football game, the popular kids competing to see who was most popular, the pointless dance were kids spend their parents money on a piece of clothing that will never be worn again...  Sadly enough, these are some of the best memories for some kids. 

Now, probably the worst part of this charade is the Homecoming court.  What it boils down to is a popularity contest.  That's all.  You really cannot avoid the fact of that's what it is, unless total delusion of having been "elected" to the court in your younger days prevents you from doing so.  For the rest of us: it's a popularity contest.  That's what a lot of high school is anyway: finding a social pecking order. 

Once leaving high school and childish ways, many people move on and "grow up".  What about kids who go to universities?  I purposely used the term "kids", because that's what most of them are now days.  Their parents pay for everything: room board, tuition.  Parents even try to run the kid's social and academic life.  I've heard stories of parents calling up the kid's professor and ask for a grade change.  Childhood is extending now way beyond the teen years into the twenty's.

One excellent social example of this is Homecoming courts at universities (others including, but not limited to, fraternities, sororities, and many sports).  Going to a university is suppose to be about higher education, not about popularity contests.  Yes, people need to have fun.  Should "fun" be viewed as immature competitions for who gets the most votes?  How about whether or not you're accepted into an exclusive group, requiring even more money to have rights to those "friends"?  How about being selected for abilities, then acting better than other people around you, even though the only reason your GPA is acceptable is because you're taking the easiest major on campus?

Homecoming courts simply exemplify the extension of childhood into what should be an adult life.  How about universities start focusing on what they are there for: higher education.  Perhaps then our degrees will stop being cheapened to nothing more than an advanced high school degree.