There's a growing disconnect happening—higher education, once positioned as the great equalizer, has quietly pivoted toward serving the privileged few. The argument goes like this: elite universities now cater almost exclusively to the wealthy and naturally gifted, abandoning their original mission to educate the broader population.

What does that mean for everyone else? Ordinary kids watch peers get accepted to prestigious schools while they're told their path is somehow "less-than." They internalize the message that if they didn't make the cut, they failed. It's brutal.

This structural shift has real consequences. When institutions stop designing for the majority and start designing for the exceptional, you create a two-tiered system. One path leads to networks, opportunities, and doors opening. The other? A lingering sense of inadequacy that follows people through their careers.

The irony is sharp: a system built on meritocracy has become increasingly inaccessible to those it supposedly serves. And somewhere along the way, we normalized telling ordinary people they weren't good enough—when really, the system just stopped being built for them.