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Who owns a “University of Toronto” knapsack? Clipborad? Sweatshirt? Don’t be ashamed; you can admit it. “U of T” paraphernalia tells the world that you are proud of your educational status. And proud you should be. It’s a prestigious institution. The other day, I overheard a high school student say to her BFF, and I quote: U of T is like, totally… the best university. I’m… like… sooo going there cuz after.. you can get such a good job. Unquote. If this girl thinks so, then it must be true, no?

Nowadays, students are not in universities for the sake of an intellectual challenge. We are not here for mere mental stimulation. No. We need that degree. A degree is a train ticket to success, and the destination is Wealth City. Bay Street has told us this. So it’s a black and white choice: Do you want to be rich and successful, or do you want to be poor and undistinguished? Apparently, there’s no gray area. And if you want to make lots money, spaces are limited. The liberal capitalist system has single-handedly turned fine, respectable institutions like universities, into a marketplace. This marketplace is the engine for the real marketplace.

Don’t think so? How many of you are willing to surrender all your class notes and assignments to a fellow student whom you do not know? Not many, I bet. And why should you? This is business. This is how the free market works. Students are played against one another. Especially when “spaces are limited” for success, the competition is fierce. So as the big guys on top swell the universities and colleges with kids as young as 17 years old, the students become nothing more than contenders. Giving up your notes to that guy who sits in the back with the red t-shirt is like giving him a 3 second head start in the race. Coca-Cola would never give Pepsi their notes, like Wal-Mart would never share theirs. It would esentially be suicide to do so. Alas, capitalism at its best.

The system has redefined and reduced the meaning of success to dollar figures. Yet, some of the most successful and respectable, not to mention, clever people I know have very little “formal” education. We have been brainwashed to replace the value of hard and honest work with credentials, and more credentials. And this boggles my mind. Many of those who capitalism deems as “successful” are also those who do some of the most dishonest work. The recent subprime mortgage crisis in the USA is my proof. A degree, as we are all aware, does not guarantee you a job placement. But it does give those in power the option of choosing you if they so desire. And if you are chosen, chances are, you are helping someone else make money from your hard work, and from your credentials. We know this, and yet we conform, and play by the rules, and get that degree, and then cross our fingers. We are even willing to go into what may potentially be a lifetime of debt just to participate in this sick game.

It is ironic that the place that opens our minds and teaches us to think about our world through critical eyes, and perhaps to formulate our own little resistance to the new world order, is in fact the same place preparing us to serve that very world.

To be clear, I am not undermining the value of higher learning. Universities offer brilliant minds an opportunity to wonder limitlessly and for this alone, I applaud. And I don't necessarily think “school stinks”. I just think the slogan is catchy.