In an age where some private universities generate profits exceeding those of Harvard, the irony is no longer amusing—it is tragic.
Yes, this is no exaggeration. Profit is legitimate, but when education turns into a stock exchange, the degree becomes a share, and the mind a surplus no one bothers to account for.
In Kuwait, private universities abound that lack even the minimum threshold of research, devoid of intellectual accumulation, churning out thousands of graduates who cannot write a paragraph of their own—yet are awarded advanced degrees.
Professor Imad Khorshid shared with us a bold report, written using artificial intelligence, dissecting this grim reality. The report may have been generated by AI—but it dared to say what many humans fear to voice.
The report declared—literally—that these institutions teach… but do not educate. They grant… but do not nurture. They graduate… but do not think. We fund them with public money, support them with scholarships, and then export to the job market graduates skilled only in temporary memorization, instant search, and paper-thin success.
The most alarming truth? Even “criticism” has become counterfeit—written by artificial intelligence, published under human names.
Academic institutions have reached a stage where marketing rhetoric outweighs formative substance, where achievement is measured by the number of graduates—not by the depth of knowledge. English is drilled without comprehension. Research is written on paper—but never touches reality, never serves society.
Meanwhile, great universities worldwide (such as Harvard) spend millions solely on research, hold students accountable for every paragraph, elevate debate over rote, critique over compliance.
Here, we purchase the “university brand” and market it as a luxury product, while the inside remains hollow. Everything is available: guaranteed admission, flexible schedules, easy graduation… everything but the mind—the greatest absentee.
Have we lost the courage to confront fragile education? Have we colluded—knowingly or blindly—in betraying knowledge? Has artificial intelligence become more honest than us?
Perhaps the crisis no longer lies in the university, nor the professor, nor the graduate—but in the entire system, which prefers buying paper over cultivating thought. So, whom do we hold accountable? Those who profit—or those who fail to think?
In one shocking statistic, financial reports indicate that a private university in Kuwait nets annual profits exceeding 40 million Kuwaiti dinars—a figure rivaling national budgets. Yet it translates into no academic quality, no scholarly output. We see no globally recognized research, no think tanks shaping educational policy, no graduates leading the future. Instead, we see academic silence, commercial contentment, and “success” reported only as numbers—hollow numbers.
Amid such a reality, the question is no longer: How do we improve education? but rather: How do we redefine education itself?
We do not condemn universities for profiting. We condemn when profit becomes the only subject they master.
And just as corporations are bound by zakat on wealth… why not require universities to pay a “zakat of the mind”? A tenth of their profits invested in research, in thought, in saving the minds that truly make the difference.
Perhaps, today, we need an independent national authority to monitor the quality of the academic mind: not buildings, but curricula; not marketing, but content. An authority that grants not only licenses, but society’s trust.
Because when education becomes a stock market, it will never produce thinkers—only traders in degrees.
