Top universities have abandoned their public service mission, instead acting like luxury brands that manufacture scarcity to increase their prestige and pricing power. They could educate many more qualified students but choose not to.

A degree from a top institution like Stanford GSB acts as a buffer. It opens doors and gives you the benefit of the doubt, allowing you to make more mistakes before people question your competence. This 'permission to fail' is a significant competitive advantage.

Instead of creating unaccredited, expensive schools like the A16Z Academy, tech leaders could have a far greater societal impact by funding existing public university systems. These institutions already serve a massive, diverse population and are proven engines of upward mobility.

Elite universities with massive endowments and shrinking acceptance rates are betraying their public service mission. By failing to expand enrollment, they function more like exclusive 'hedge funds offering classes' that manufacture scarcity to protect their brand prestige, rather than educational institutions aiming to maximize societal impact.

Contrary to decades of advice, college degrees are becoming a liability for some young workers. As universities lower standards, employers are losing faith in credentials. This has led to a situation where unemployment is lower for non-degree holders (ages 22-34) than for their indebted, degreed peers.

Top universities operate like luxury brands such as LVMH by creating artificial scarcity, rejecting the vast majority of applicants. This strategy boosts their perceived value, allowing them to charge exorbitant tuition at incredibly high margins, effectively transferring wealth from middle-class families to university endowments, faculty, and administrators.

The popular narrative that AI will destroy higher education is flawed. Like past technologies, AI will serve as a complement, not a substitute, for skilled individuals. It will amplify the value of college graduates, who learn how to use such tools effectively, while the core benefits of college—peer networks and credentialing—remain irreplaceable.

Despite earning degrees, 45% of recent college graduates find themselves in low-wage jobs because they lack marketable skills. This suggests a significant disconnect between traditional, time-based higher education and real-world employer demands, turning many expensive degrees into mere "certificates of attendance."

The primary function of a college degree is to signal desirable employee traits—intelligence, work ethic, and compliance—rather than to impart useful skills. As more people get degrees, the signal weakens, forcing students into an expensive and wasteful 'credential race' for ever-higher qualifications to stand out.