I think your third paragraph gets to it exactly

by Mike (bart), Wednesday, October 12, 2016, 12:38 (3079 days ago) @ LT

There's a social reproduction/institutional maturity element at play. I think when the idea of ND was most powerful, and where the alliegances are most zealous, was maybe in generations past -- particularly the Hesburgh Era. Through that period, Notre Dame acted as foundation and crucible for the fates of entire families/generations, particularly for kids for whom there were (by self selection, family demand, or lack of choice) few other options. That mutual, reciprocal tenuousness could, I certainly think, create a feeling of mystique: an institution and a population pulling each other through the struggle of reaching the top. It's not a value judgement to say that when the "floor" as far as institutional and student outcomes is finally established and raised, that same dynamic of reciprocal tenuousness simply does not exist in the same way.

E.g., I think the ND of ca. 1982 could potentially lend a specifically powerful charge to the future of someone like your dad (Catholic farmboy from small town Iowa) than it ultimately did for you (suburban Philly (sic), two parents who hold university degrees, etc) or will for your kid(s) (even with two ND parents). I think it is probably pretty easy for you (and for most ND people, myself included) to picture their lives past, present, and future, without ND (maybe not without the people they met at ND, but that's a different question).