The steady rise in tuition fees across top-tier institutions such as IBA, LUMS and other renowned universities paints an equally troubling picture. What was once an attainable aspiration for bright, hardworking students from middle-class families has now become an economic impossibility. The best opportunities – academic and professional alike – are increasingly reserved for those who can afford them, not those who deserve them. Employers, particularly multinationals, continue to favour graduates from these elite institutions, further entrenching privilege and leaving thousands of equally capable students behind. This failure lies not with the institutions alone but with the state’s inability to treat higher education as a public good. Years of underfunding and policy neglect have transformed learning into a commodity sold to the highest bidder. Public universities, meanwhile, continue to suffer from poor infrastructure and outdated curricula, forcing ambitious students to turn to expensive private options. The government must invest in strengthening public universities and expanding scholarship programmes to ensure that merit, not money, defines opportunity.
The tragedy of today’s Pakistan is that education – once the ladder to upward mobility – has become the very barrier blocking it. Until access to quality learning is restored as a right rather than a privilege, the nation will continue failing its youth.