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Ms. Delcid is a freshman studying Computer Science and Government at Harvard College.
I often stroll through Harvard Yard and find it hard to believe this is the same institution that once challenged minds like J. Robert Oppenheimer, Jack Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and W.E.B. Du Bois. The pessimism in the air makes the Harvard experience feel like a mandatory four-year goof-off before selling out to consulting. My most ambitious peers see this too, and as a result, are dropping out in waves.
That said, there remains some magic to life on campus. It’s the densest concentration of brilliance and nonstop thinking I’ve experienced, but our standards should be higher than that. The place should exude excellence at every turn. The undergraduate experience should be four years of kinetic rigor and transformation. Instead, each day leaves me more convinced I should leave to work at Palantir. But this impulse just slaps a band-aid on a greater issue: young people need a rigorous Ivory Tower to help them cultivate these and direction before joining the workforce, and they don’t have that right now.
So, should we detach from our broken institutions and build better ones? I’m not convinced that’s the wisest path.
Universities, for all their flaws, are still the best places for young people to cultivate direction. If we neglect them, we risk leaving this generation of current and incoming students without a proper stopgap between adolescence and their professional life. We should continue developing alternatives, but not at the expense of neglecting today’s youth. Instead, let’s focus on reforming existing university structures in parallel, and let the best man win. Here are some adaptations I believe are essential for the betterment of the university: With an abundance of information should come an abundance of choice. As information becomes increasingly commoditized, students will more easily identify the path that suits them best, and for most, it will become clear that the standard path no longer makes sense. In response, universities should give students the freedom to curate their own education in pursuit of increasingly varied and ambitious careers.
If I’m ready for a PhD at 18, I should enroll in the program. If I want to start a company, I should be allowed to structure my degree around faculty-supervised milestones instead of course requirements.
Institutions must trust that students know what’s right for them and give them the freedom to mold their own paths. This will result in a student body that is not only more interesting but also better equipped to pursue their distinct missions.
Reforming professorship. Professors don’t need endless credentials. They need to be truly and obviously excellent. Most students aren’t pursuing a career in academia, and encouraging faculty to gain real-world experience would make them more grounded mentors. Becoming a professor typically takes over ten years from the start of a PhD to securing a tenure-track position in the U.S., which leaves little incentive for people on that path to spend time trying something else.
To address this, universities should fairly value and consider private sector experience when deciding who earns tenure. This gives future professors the space to figure out if academia is truly right for them, and it makes them more seasoned and self-aware when thinking about their subject matter’s real-world implications. Unique paths to tenure should be encouraged, starting with more flexibility around degree requirements and time spent solely in academia.
Many faculty members have also forgotten that their real contribution lies in being thought partners, not distant lecturers. A 2020 Gallup study found that only 27% of college graduates felt they had a single professor who cared about them as a person. That level of personal investment should be the norm, not a rarity. In a world where students can learn almost anything online for free, meaningful connection is the only real value universities still offer, and their survival likely depends on how well they deliver it.
Genuine meritocracy. From everywhere. Recently, news broke that the Trump administration revoked Harvard’s ability to admit international students. As someone who generally leans conservative, I found myself in the unusual position of siding with my classmates on this issue.
American universities are nearly unmatched in their ability to attract and retain talent. That's why we’ve been winning for centuries. If we want this to continue, we should protect what gives us our edge over global competitors, not destroy it in a fit of partisanship. To keep the uncompromised Ivory Tower intact, we need to preserve institutions' freedom to admit whoever they want, as long as those individuals demonstrate remarkable depth and integrity.Universities require intellectual tension and contrasting viewpoints to function as truth-seeking institutions. As a first-generation, low-income student born and raised in America, I’ve gained immensely from the range of perspectives on campus—it’s expanded my worldview and sharpened my sense of how I can contribute. Children of billionaires and rural farmers benefit in the same way. Without this collision of worldviews, higher education risks becoming mere credentialing rather than a catalyst for real intellectual growth.
This revocation is also a plain national security threat. Talent magnetism has been an American strategy for generations, from the Manhattan Project to the Space Race. This approach has helped us succeed on a global scale and has become ridiculously important as the AI, space, and quantum races get increasingly serious. Rejecting world-class talent eager to contribute to our universities and labs is a gift to our adversaries.
The university should be an Ivory Tower that floats above political winds, anchored in real ideological diversity and institutional impartiality. Just one school needs to take initiative, starting by rethinking and publicly redefining the rigidity of its curriculum, and its faculty and admissions priorities. Are they optimized for excellence or exclusivity?
Ideally, Harvard or Stanford would set the standard and push for better metrics of excellence. These institutions have a long track record of setting national precedents. Harvard’s elective system became the norm nationwide after it instituted it in the 19th century. It was also central to the Supreme Court case that reshaped admissions criteria at federally funded schools. Stanford helped define the modern research university and forged the university-industry model that shaped Silicon Valley. The ripple effect of either school taking bold action today would be massive. But realistically, our universities seem stuck in their own inertia. I hope administrators recognize the existential risk and adapt their priorities accordingly. But I won’t hold my breath.
