Nowadays, much of the content in undergraduate university courses can be found in the public domain. There is nothing revolutionary anymore about the fundamental laws of chemistry and physics, the basic theorems of calculus and the Western philosophical canon. If the only goal of a college education is to transfer information from one individual to another, then the immense amount of work done by educational systems to proliferate knowledge among undergrads and to maintain their functionality is largely unnecessary. In 2025, the global Massive Open Online Courses market surpassed $25 billion, with platforms like Coursera, edX and Khan Academy reaching hundreds of millions of learners.

Yet, contrary to what the starkest interpretation of a university’s purpose would suggest, millions of people pay exorbitant sums of money to access information they can find for free on the internet. Apart from the fact that undergraduate degrees are important pathways to further education, employers still evaluate their droves of applicants through pieces of transcript paper and institution names. The most salient feature of academic institutions is their intricate network of obstacles and procedures which adequately prepare students to surmount similarly enigmatic obstacles and procedures in the workplace. In simpler terms, they are bureaucratic measures.

But many students attend college for a different, perhaps more uplifting reason. A common defense for the value of universities is that they are crucibles of intellectual development. This is supported by the Gallup-Purdue study, which found that professors who inspire students predict a doubling in the probability of engagement at work.

The numbers tell a different story, though. Between 1976 and 2018, while tuition costs have skyrocketed and the humanities have declined precipitously, the number of administrators at American universities rose by 164%, while professional staff ballooned by 452%, far outpacing growth in faculty (92%) and student enrollment (78%).

The pristine landscape of higher education is tainted by prohibitively expensive test prep and consulting companies whose sole purpose is to help clients hack the prestige game, which colleges also play through tactics like artificially reducing acceptance rates to increase rankings. Institutions, becoming more “business-like,” spend between $429 and $623 per student each year and in 2019 spent $2.2 billion collectively on advertisements alone, which often emphasize the luxury experience and the brand name of universities. Even if universities remain intellectual crucibles, it is in spite of contemporary developments rather than because of them.

Academic standards provide a common denominator against which individuals can be compared. Undeniably, assessments are necessary incentives in a functioning educational system. But on a more individual level, they often disadvantage students who truly care about a subject. When hundreds of people learn the same material simultaneously, distinguishing between exceptional students and those who are exceptionally good at “gaming the system” is nearly impossible.

A similar problem arises when assignments are graded according to rigid standards in an assembly line fashion, which discourages students from experimenting or making meandering arguments. Academic evaluations are linked with lower autonomous motivation and goals that aim to avoid failure rather than attain positive success. However, goals focused on developing competence, which are linked to desirable outcomes like interest and persistence, are found to be mostly unrelated to academic achievement. University classes can function like bureaucratic machines comprising networks of offices whose purpose is to distribute information evenly among its lowest levels.

Careless errors are not uncommon during exams, nor is remembering a concept only after time is called; individuals with high working memory capacity are especially vulnerable to performance decreases under pressure. Specific grading policies can drastically alter student outcomes even when student input remains unchanged. The academic system in which success is based on standardized metrics incentivizes many students to focus on obtaining acceptable scores using methods like reading barely enough to earn points or even persuading professors into giving undue extensions. Some may advise that “grades do not determine your worth” or preach the virtues of erudition, but as well-intentioned as they may be, the advice is not much more than a band-aid solution. Curiosity and credentials must compromise with each other, but they are bound to be in perpetual conflict in some capacity as long as education remains a path to wealth and power. Perhaps an effective academic ecosystem is one that negotiates a successful tradeoff between the two.

Few, if any, educated individuals would find a problem in someone holding their passion for learning as an important part of their identity. But it is not enough to merely believe in passion and intellectual vitality. One must express these ideals through one’s actions, and, in doing so, it is implied that some sacrifice must be made. Historically established institutions, even if they possess their own flaws, offer a claim to legitimacy that is difficult to procure through other means. A university education sends a universally understood signal about someone’s perceived competence, eliminating the need for tortuous explanations.

The value of credentials lies in their presentability. But is it possible to uphold one’s ideals if the tasks that one does on a daily basis to achieve imperative goals are dissonant with one’s principles? Intellectual vitality is a nebulous concept which in itself does not prescribe specific actions but is a coveted trait that continually demands proof in forms that can vary significantly based on interpretation. If a critical pillar of one’s identity is supported primarily by an academic system dependent on a small number of decisive and narrowly-designed exams in which results can alter based on random occurrences then it is not difficult to see how academic metrics can lead to negative psychological consequences.

Real world success does not depend solely on ability. A success brought about by the most foolish of fools is still a success, and a grave miscalculation by the most genius of geniuses is still a failure. “Other factors” are present in virtually any undertaking. Reality does not yield itself to any particular individual out of mercy or a sense of fairness. Yet subpar performance on assessments is particularly damning because they were created for the express purpose of gauging ability.

This essential fact of life is apparently unacceptable to the thousands of neurotic, perfectionistic students who earned perfect grades for their entire lives, applying to increasingly exclusive colleges. Scores, however, cannot objectively define whether someone meets the criteria for “intellectual mastery” because their significance is relative. Total application volume increased 171% between 2014 and 2023. Consequently, American students are more stressed than ever even though A’s comprise 43% of all university letter grades nationally, an increase of 28 percentage points since 1960 and 12 percentage points since 1988. Many students from elite colleges, supposedly the best in the nation, have been shown to not read assigned texts closely enough to form their own opinions on topics and are instead obsessed with accruing frivolous titles from exclusive clubs. They are also reading substantially fewer long-form works, which are often necessary for deep engagement in a subject, because of their past focus on meeting measurable standards valued highly in admissions criteria today. Grade inflation—as it is called—is caused primarily by student pressure on institutions, which has increased alongside the number of college students, in the form of faculty reviews, enrollment numbers and personal appeals. Well-intentioned professors, concerned for the psychological well-being of students under immense social and parental pressure to succeed, inadvertently exacerbated competition by inflating grades. Fixation on credentials leads to a culture where success is expected and failure, an unpleasant but inevitable experience in the real world, is anathema.

This is not necessarily because today’s students inherently lack the virtues necessary for deep thought or that they started with ill intentions, but because of economic incentives that warp what it means to be intellectually competent. So long as credentials define how one’s intellectual abilities are perceived by others, people will never cease to seek more of them in hopes that public approbation, rather than private exploration, is the key to a materially and psychologically stable future.

Perhaps there is some inexplicable urge among talented and ambitious individuals, who succeeded at nearly every endeavor they pursued, to pick up every last scrap they possibly can. Their exceptional aptitude in multiple areas did not necessarily afford them freedom from social or economic pressures. Instead they are chained to their own competence.