An education is like the latter situation, but I think many of our students today are under the impression that it is like one of the former ones. They pay the tuition (or more likely their parents do), and of course they do actually have to do
some<\/em> things (like just maybe go to class, and write some papers). But if exactly what is required of them is not spelled out in every detail, step by step, then somehow they feel as though they are being treated unfairly.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
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In the humanities, at least, grades are an attempt by professors to evaluate not whether you\u2019ve jumped through certain hoops (although some such mundane things may be necessary as
part <\/em>of a course), but whether you\u2019ve made the most of an opportunity, whether you\u2019ve had a meaningful educational experience, whether you\u2019ve sought to wrestle with issues and methods for approaching those issues.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
Education can take place \u2013 indeed, it
should <\/em>take place \u2013 throughout one\u2019s life. Every long-term experience of another culture, every book read, every conversation, and every thought thunk is potentially an educational experience. So why pay for university? Because there is simply no comparable time in one\u2019s life when one can have a shared educational experience, with that much time devoted simply to reading, learning, exploring, and pondering. <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
Yet for some, it seems, the closest they want to come to the experience of climbing Mount Everest is to
google <\/em>\u201cMt. Everest\u201d, change a few words, and wait for the \u201cA\u201d and ultimately the diploma they view as their right. They\u2019ve paid for it, after all. <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/envirotreks.com.np\/images\/mt_everest.jpg\")
<\/a>There are other cases where one pays for an experience<\/em> rather than a service<\/em>, and you simply cannot approach matters in the same way as in the aforementioned instances. You can hire sherpas to guide you through the Himalyas. But if you pay for a mountain-climbing expedition to the top of Mt. Everest, and never get on the plane, or expect to be carried<\/em> to the top, and when you sit at home doing nothing but paying the bill you find you haven\u2019t had the experience you demand a refund, you are in for a disappointment.<\/div>\n