No matter how many times I have asked myself this question over the last 4 years, I still do not seem to have a concrete answer. From my point of view, our notion of formal education, at least where it relates to higher learning from a Bachelors' Degree onwards, seems to have evolved into a structured hierarchy of training. Students globally compete to attend institutions of higher learning, many of whose names are known worldwide. Some institutions become credible for hosting driven and committed students who expect to land top jobs ( check out a forum discussion here ) for a variety of reasons, including a large alumni body, community partnerships, or privately funded fellowships. In the process of accommodating more students applying to more institutions, guidelines have been formed that have today become solidified. That is, institutions are standardizing the way they teach, so as to preserve methods that produce effective results in students. But they are not standardizing the