[itiro]

“Almost a religion” is apt. Higher education system as we know it started in the church.

As belief in god-kings wained, landed gentry sought to keep their kids from peasant work; kings decree a family was beyond such work was seen as unfair. The church was happy to accept payment for study in theology the illiterate were unable to falsify.

Then came bachelors, masters, PhD, to filter and gatekeep even further.

That’s a paraphrase of various historians perspectives anyway. Depends how reliable one finds them to be, I suppose.