When Chevening, Fulbright and Rhodes scholarships are the only avenues to break into otherwise-inaccessible networks and opportunities, local universities will necessarily reproduce the kinds of knowledge-systems that are rewarded by those sources of funding.

We will continue to measure our successes by the number of students we sent abroad, on admissions to Harvard, and to maintaining dependence on the prestige economy.

In such a context, the worth of a professor is not measured by how well they teach but by how adept they are at writing letters of recommendation to an audience of mostly white gatekeepers of opportunity abroad.

In such a context, universities cannot help but initiate students into a hyper-competitive environment that rewards uninterrupted, consistent, and constant sacrifice.

No real learning is possible in such an environment. Professors must sneak it in when they can, operating as criminals, sneaking learning in between administratively regulated metrics for success.