Universities should be more than toll gates

> Absolute joy turned into anger, and anger into resentment, as I wondered how different my life might have been if I’d been taught subjects I actually cared about by professors who cared too. Then I caught myself, realizing I was being melodramatic about a decade-old grievance.

This is incredibly self-indulgent. You were given opportunities you refused to engage with and are now continuing that pattern by blaming everyone else for your failures.

University has no value beyond credentialism only if you don't put any in.

> You were given opportunities you refused to engage with

That's not what I read at all. They went to a good university and got good grades. They did what they were supposed to do.

Then they later realized how little of value the actual education was.

The university missed an opportunity to educate them, not the other way around. The student is not responsible for having a bad teacher.