I Am Allowed to Hate My University And Be In Love With Education

I am allowed to hate my university and be in love with education.

More often than not, people confuse a hatred for an educational institute with the hatred for gaining knowledge/desire to learn. You are called ungrateful for showing so much apathy towards a privilege very few are bestowed with. "You should be thankful you are getting a chance to get an education...so many people don't have these privileges." They are not wrong in saying that, although that statement comes from a place where  education is a privilege and not a right and well that's a discussion for another day. Still, let me try and explain to you 'why,' as a person, you are allowed to hate an institute that provides degrees and still be in love with learning/education.

Coming from a family of teachers and professors, I value education profoundly. I think it's the greatest weapon a person could have. In my opinion, education is the cure for most problems in this world. The way people view a mosque or a temple is how I view a library/university. I value intelligence to be the greatest quality a human being can have. I think that places of education are sacred. To me, they are more sacred than a mosque or a temple would be to believers. So then, it would seem absurd that I have such an immense hatred for many universities across the nation. But if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.

Universities, specially across the United States, have become rather than an institution of knowledge, a place of business. Administration isn't interested in producing bright minds that would help make the world a better place one day but are driven by the simple idea of squeezing capital. A program isn't beneficial because it will help the students expand their minds, it is beneficial because it has numerous investors interested which would eventually benefit the university monetarily. Now, I have no problem with running a business. I think business are awesome. I also don't have a problem with having a 'profit' mindset. It is a necessary evil. What I do have a problem with is a business not being marketed as a business. If a University desires to be a place of business, it should market itself as one too. The people associated with it should have the guts to call it for what it is. What I also have a problem with is taking something as sacred as an institution of knowledge and turning it into a money-generating factory. What I am offended by is institutions claiming to be a temple of knowledge when all they do is merely sell information on a piece of paper.

As one would be offended if their church was selling a ticket to heaven, I am offended by this business of education. It shows how far off as a society we have strayed when we see no problem with churning profits out of places of knowledge. This is the consumer mindset United States has created. The one where if something isn't monetarily profitable, it isn't worth doing. And I, as a person and as a citizen of this country, am allowed to despise this circus. If you are allowed to take something sacred to me and sell it for money, I am allowed to despise this institution and all it stands for. It doesn't mean I hate knowledge, it doesn't mean I think learning is pointless, it simply means you have insulted my beliefs. This isn't a university. It isn't producing talented minds that will make this world a better place-by their prose, by their medicine, by their scientific discoveries, by their art, etc. It is a business trading money for a piece of paper and I am allowed to hate it. That's all.