[candybar]

My understanding was that this idea of education being about learning for its own sake was from an era when only the children of the privileged class received higher education and since their future as part of the future elite was more or less guaranteed from their upbringing and connections and it was thought important than the future members of the elite class are broadly well-educated, not merely specialists in their roles.

The reality now is that education is more or less for everyone and most people, even at elite institutions, don't have a clear path to being a member of the elite without working super hard for specific career goals. It would be odd, then, for some of those students to continue to pretend that they have a clear path to being a member of the elite and learn the kinds of things that are disproportionately important for the members of the elite, when they have to accomplish a lot to get there. The world is simply far more competitive.