Ultimately, the true measure of any educational experience lies in how it empowers individuals to think critically, pursue meaningful goals, and contribute to society in ways that resonate with their authentic aspirations, conventional or otherwise, while maintaining reasonable levels of personal well-being.

As colleges lost their monopoly on information, college became less about learning and more about signaling. Whatever value they once provided is diminishing. Peter Thiel argues that college has become an expensive insurance policy for upper middle class parents who don’t want to see their children fall through the cracks of society.