[erkt]

You are 100% correct about the quality of the resources in a local library. That’s an artificial barrier to learning though. Aaron Swartz died because of this. JSTOR is a crime against humanity.

Libgen is a solution to that.

I agree there is value to learning with experts but not at the cost we are expected to pay these days. The labs and equipment are a tiny fraction of the tuition a student pays and many disciplines do not require anymore more than pen and paper and the aforementioned resources. Why should a math and economics major pay the same as a biochem student? Because the majority of the cost is the bureaucracy and the fancy real estate investments.