Education is often spoken about as though it were only a ladder, a ladder some people climb quickly, some slowly, and some never reach at all. Yet that image is too narrow, and in some cases, cruel. For many people, especially those who do not make it to tertiary education, the real wound is not simply the absence of a degree; it is the quiet sense that they have somehow fallen outside the circle of full social worth. Education, then, is not only about what one knows or where one studies. It is also about whether a person is allowed to feel dignified, recognized, and socially at home in the world.
This is why the question of education must be discussed with greater moral seriousness. A society that treats tertiary education as the only respectable destination quietly teaches a harmful lesson: that those who do not arrive there are somehow lesser, less capable, or less complete. That idea is both false and damaging. Human worth does not begin at the university gate, and it does not end outside it. A person may not have gone through formal higher education and still possess intelligence, discipline, moral depth, practical wisdom, and the power to contribute meaningfully to society. To deny that is to mistake schooling for humanity itself.
What troubles me most is not merely that some people are excluded from tertiary education, but that exclusion often carries a social meaning greater than the educational one. It can shape how people see themselves and how others see them. They may begin to internalize silence, inferiority, or shame. In that sense, the problem is not only access; it is belonging. A decent educational culture should do more than distribute certificates. It should create a social world in which people feel respected, where their dignity is not conditional on academic rank, and where different paths of learning are not treated as second-best forms of life.
To speak honestly, we need to admit that the modern obsession with credentials can make education forget its wider human purpose. If education is truly meaningful, it should enlarge the person, not humiliate the one who cannot follow a particular route. It should make room for vocational skill, self-directed learning, community knowledge, moral formation, artistic growth, and intellectual seriousness outside formal institutions. In that broader sense, education is not a privilege reserved for the admitted few; it is a shared human good that should deepen dignity and belonging for all.
So the real question is not whether everyone must go to university. It is whether our society can learn to recognize value where it appears, and to honor human beings beyond the narrow prestige of schooling. That is the deeper task. Education should not divide people into the worthy and the unworthy. It should help us build a social order where every person can stand with dignity, learn with freedom, and belong without apology.