Doesn't offend at all. I mostly agree with you and others on this thread. I hope you don't think I wish education to be bought and sold like a business. I'm just pointing out that that's how it seems to be.

My experience was complete opposite of that of a childcare. May be I drew the butt end of the short straw when picking my university. In some of my classes I'd be completely lost had it not been for websites like MIT Opencourseware, NPTEL, and even YouTube. I saw a lot of my peers struggle in those classes too, and gave them those website to study from. To add to the problem, those were some of the hardest classes in my program, and there would be just one prof teaching it year after year.

One time I had a tutor for one such course. He was a PhD candidate at the time. Half the class would go to him for tutoring. And I am not even kidding about the numbers. From what I've seen, he is way smarter than the prof, and way better in teaching too. I don't think he would have any problem with raking in the research. He was telling the story of how he got rejected from an instructor position in the university. The professor who was teaching the course at the time was tenured. He was the only one teaching the course and has been teaching the same course for more than a decade. They rejected him simply on that basis. I think the prof also has some unofficial administrative influence, and played a role.

He repeated the final from the years before. During the final, when they first distributed the question papers, half the students were grinning wide (including yours truly), and the rest were frowning and probably crying inside. This had to be a terrifying final for the uninitiated. It had 8 questions, each of which would take 30 minutes to solve even if you knew the material. Total time was 3 hours. Only those who had a copy beforehand, and solved it before the exam, could finish in time. Apparently this prof has been repeating the same questions for 5 years now; could be more. The same exact ones. Some say this is the way he maintains the minimum class average.

So, yeah, I am also part of the crowd that have accepted the status quo and tries to find every little trick to get ahead. But, just because that's how it is doesn't mean that's how it should be.