We Accept the Education We Think We Deserve

Just like any other educational institution, in 1920, Lucknow University was a dream stitched together by idealists, academicians, and visionaries—those who believed that knowledge could uplift entire generations, democratize opportunity, erase social boundaries, and create thinking youth who would shape the nation and, hopefully, the world. A 105-year-old institution doesn’t emerge from bureaucracy; it emerges from passion. The earliest ideals of LU were rooted in sincerity—professors who treated teaching as a calling, not a job and classrooms where curiosity mattered more than conformity.

A hundred years later, I entered those same halls expecting to feel that fire. What I found instead was smoke. The ideals remained in brochures, but the spirit had begun to drain out of the system, and the words I never expected came from my mouth during a conversation: “Well, how much can you expect from a government college?”

It took me a while to realize how wrong that thought process was. The reality of government colleges in India today is perplexing—or perhaps the clarity of their intentions is simply difficult to accept: Education. Is. Being. Capitalized. Under the noble banner of “public education,” many institutions end up functioning like outdated bureaucracies—slow, overcrowded, underfunded, and often exhausting. It’s not that I expect cinematic perfection. I don’t expect ivy-covered campuses or elite auditoriums.

But I do expect sincerity. And when a handful of educational institutions in a country of 1.46 billion become the benchmark of quality, while the rest exist merely to increase the headcount of degree-holders, something is deeply wrong. If anything, tying quality education to lakhs of rupees only reinforces the dangerous idea that ‘learning is a luxury’.

Somewhere along the way, people stopped treating education as a passion and began treating it as a burden—just another task to complete, just another file to sign, just another syllabus to “cover”. The purpose that once lit these hallways dimmed beneath layers of indifference and institutional fatigue. Today, many government colleges survive not because of the system, but DESPITE IT.

This was the backdrop against which I made my choice. Choosing LU meant choosing legacy, familiarity, and roots—choosing my hometown at a time when almost all my friends left for Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, or even foreign universities. As a top grader, people expected me to chase “prestigious names.” Staying back—without much wonder—was seen as an act of rebellion, a refusal to conform to the academic migration that everyone assumes is the only way to succeed nowadays. But courage comes with its dreadful companion—doubt. Quietly, I kept asking myself: Will my university honour the trust I placed in it? Or will I spend the next three years wondering if I should have left too?

The answer began unfolding in Semester 1.

Like every hopeful student, my imagination was shaped by films and books. The kind of learning environment Dead Poets Society made us visualize—full of passionate teachers whispering “Carpe Diem”. But the reality of LU was nothing like those cinematic classrooms we grew up romanticizing—it was jarring. Some professors were exceptional—people whose lectures reminded me why I chose humanities, why I enjoyed exploring different perspectives, and why education has the power to transform lives. But others treated teaching as an obligation, not a purpose. No structured notes, information so rudimentary it barely rose above common sense, hurried dictations from scraps of paper, vague explanations—as if the enthusiasm had evaporated long ago.

The infrastructure didn’t help. Renovations either never started or seemed to drag on forever, classrooms had broken platforms, dusty benches, washrooms that required exploration of their own, and the vocational courses introduced under the guise of “enhancing human capital” were anything but useful. Yet every complaint was dismissed with the same complacent sentence: “Then you should’ve gone to Delhi University or some hoity-toity private college.” As if DU isn’t grappling with the very same underfunding, sluggish bureaucracy, and deteriorating infrastructure—especially in the South Campus and off-campus colleges. And how is a private college even a viable option for most students? It’s simply the harsh reality of watching education slowly being commodified, while institutions retreat from accountability and learn to brush off genuine concerns with alarming ease. It reminded me of a line I read somewhere: “Mediocrity defends itself by blaming the dreamer.”

But amidst this disappointment, something else began to emerge—something the system hadn’t completely defeated: Students. The only resilient force.

Societies like Deb Soc, LitCore, Praan, Vitaria, and now the multi-faceted event Eureka became the heartbeat of the campus. They created the intellectual culture that the institution failed to provide. These societies and events aren’t just mere “extracurricular activities” but also constructive coping mechanisms. They are the students’ way of saying: If the system won’t give us the exposure we deserve, we will create it ourselves.

Yes, while LU didn’t exactly match my expectations, it did teach me something more grounded: that institutions survive on people, not buildings; that learning thrives on the sincerity of the learners, not reputation; and that sometimes the system fails, but the students don’t.

To accept the flaws was never an option—to acknowledge them was. And that isn’t cynicism; it’s simply calling out something that should have never been normalized. In a university where the system often stumbles, students continue to rise. They show up, build societies, organize events, create spaces for thought, and nurture creativity that the system sometimes forgets to honour. Their effort is a quiet revolution.

So, coming back to the title I began with and taking it a little further—
We accept the education we think we deserve……..or DO WE?