Why are there so few shows about college?

Variety

Grown-ish, Dear White People and The Goldbergs are the only current shows that feature college depictions. Why? “I think it’s a failure of imagination on creative execs, to be honest,” says Dear White People creator Justin Simien. “I think people get a little scared because they hear ‘college’ and they think ‘college age’; it starts to become a marketing exercise and a self-fulfilling prophecy.” Grown-ish showrunner Julie Bean says college-age adults often experience internal conflict, based on ideological growth and existential reckoning, which can be difficult to portray on screen in an accurate and compelling manner. “It’s very easy to do a fish-out-of-water story in high school,” Bean says, adding that there’s a “protected bubble of college, sort of this utopia that you live in for those four years, that people just think, ‘Well, there’s not enough conflict there’ or, ‘What are the stories you’re going to tell besides the love stories or the partying? College is going to class, drinking, partying and having sex.’”