[kneebonian]

No the problem goes thusly.

The university was a place of learning, education, and becoming a better person. It was focused on the pursuit of knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

Then it became noticed that smart educated people went to college, and so the idea then became if you went to college you to must be smart and educated.

Then because that was accepted as true many people saw college as the path to a better life. Then after WW2 because college was seen as the path to a better life the US Govt. decided that everyone should get the chance to go to college with the GI Bill.

Then college morphed from a place you went to learn to study and to understand to a place you go so you could get a job.

Then because that is why people were going colleges started optimizing as places to get a job.

Harvard became optimized for getting certain types of jobs, namely CEO, politician, etc, essentially seen as the jobs of "the elite". But remember for every person who went to Harvard and is now an overqualified CEO there are also 10 Andy Bernards out there.

So the whole purpose of the university and higher education has been gutted, as thanks to the introduction of the Business and Communications degrees you can actually be college educated while learning nothing of real value, or of beauty or science or anything that the traditional colleges existed to teach us.

As a final though I leave this article against Tulip Subsidies. https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/06/06/against-tulip-subsidie...

[fallingknife]

Very true. After basic needs are met, the majority of people will spend the majority of their efforts pursuing status. So anything that confers status will become focused on that alone to the exclusion of other goals.

[visarga]

> The university was a place of learning, education, and becoming a better person.

Religious studies in other words. That was the purpose of the first universities, to educate religious brass.

[programmarchy]

Seems like you've got your rose tinted glasses on. The first universities were established by religious leaders to organize/control priestly power. Basically the same as today.

[kneebonian]

Seems like your off. The first universities were the Acadamy of Plato and the rehtorical schools of the ancient Greeks.

During the middle ages the universities were associated with the monastaries because those were the few places where literate people congregated.

Plus there were only 5 areas of study in the early university.

- Theology

- Law

- Medicine

- Natural Scene

- And mathematics (I think)

So you're wrong, like really wrong, like wrong wrong, can't be more wrong. But hey I'm sure if you go back to /r/athiesm you'll get some more good talking points.