If all you want to do is learn things, in Australia, anyone can attend lectures. You cant go to tutorials, or get a degree, but you can enrich your soul as much as you like.
In Brasil too, on public institutions, as long as there’s vacancies not filled by enrolled students.
Its kinda the original point of universities, a place people go to share ideas and learn from one another. Somewhere along the way a lot of them turned into degree mills instead :(
My experience with uni was soul crushing.
Same. It was unpleasant. It was expensive. It was lonely. It wasn’t well supported. Life only started looking up once university finished.
The problem is that no one is learning for the sake of learning when university costs more than a house deposit and then some. Opportunities are gated behind university degrees, so people have to do them. So the marker of success will continue to be how many people find high paying jobs.
Make education affordable. Make education accessible. Make wages reasonable to afford a basic standard of living at least.
