The late Charlie Kirk often argued that college is a scam. While many disagree with his point (and there is some reason to), there is a truth to what he said. Look at the modern university. It is not a place of education, and the lack of personal reading among college students shows that.
Oxford Languages defines education as “[giving] intellectual, moral and social instruction to someone (especially a child), typically at a university.” This presupposes that the people providing the education both are of good morality themselves and can achieve morally good results for their students. Education is supposed to bring order to the soul of the student and to provide proper guidance.
To be blunt, this is not happening, and the poor mental health of students is evidence of the disservice that universities are causing. According to Harvard Health Publishing, 63% of college students in the United States felt “overwhelming anxiety” in 2018, and only 23% of U.S. students were being treated for it during that year. Additionally, a 2023 NIH study found that 39% of North American college students suffer from anxiety disorders. While this issue requires more study, it’s obvious that universities are either perpetuating or enabling the aspects of classroom life that make anxiety feel inevitable.
The modern university also teaches ideological antagonism and stagnation, hence the need for self-education. While pretending to be propagators of freedom, universities don’t realize that their students either self-censor or are directly censored by professors or administrators. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), “166 of the 257 schools surveyed got an F for their speech climate.” This comes at a politically contentious time where speech should be the answer we look toward. Now, no one is willing to come to the table and discuss. Make no mistake, this is clearly miseducation.
However, as harsh as this may sound, college does serve a purpose. It creates the space for us to realize that our education is exactly that: ours. This requires that the students themselves take their education into their own hands. The best way they can do this is by reading.
You might be asking: “Don’t we already read for our classes?” Well, sometimes we do. If we think it is valuable to do so for a class, we will most likely read the book assigned to us. Yet, assigned reading only serves two purposes either the reading is providing legitimacy for the ideological capture of the class, or it is just plain busy work?
The fast-paced nature of college discourages assigned reading in the first place. Students are too tired after a day of extracurriculars, jobs, internships or homework to read 30 pages of a book that the teacher will summarize next class. When reading for class feels pointless, it conditions students to not desire to read at all. A 2025 Harvard University study also suggests that students start abandoning personal reading in their teenage years when they have no choice over what they read. When reading is only done in the classroom, students develop a negative perception of reading and are discouraged from adopting good reading habits. This leads to students only hearing the professor’s perspective, which is most likely the same as the rest of liberal academia, instead of experiencing a wider diversity of opinions giving students room to develop their own perspectives.
This is why we need to read on our own time. This will force us to expand our viewpoints beyond what our professors are telling us. While many college students may not have the attention spans or wills to read outside of what is required, it is a critical part of developing into independent thinkers within an institution that isn’t likely to change anytime soon.
In summation, education does not belong to those in the ivory tower. It belongs to those who are willing to challenge the status quo on campus. It belongs to those who are willing to counter opinions and pursue truth in a sea of conformity.
