> I read your article and I honestly couldn't tell whether it was serious Thanks for reading. It was indeed serious, though the concern was more about what I t

> I read your article and I honestly couldn't tell whether it was serious Thanks for reading. It was indeed serious, though the concern was more about what I think is a financial abuse of students when they are recycled round and round a system that keeps giving them one more chance in order to take more money from them. The rest is an attempt to ponder solutions, and I kind of have to offer lots of angles for the piece to fit well with the publication. One of those, as you say, is that we offer a basic "pass" certificate just for completing the course. That's in keeping with student's expectations these days, since we commodified higher education and made degrees a "product", students expect to get something for their money even without effort. That's not an argument against meritocracy, because good students could still get a better degree grade if they want. Anyway just one idea to stop them being held hostage in a sunk-cost trap. And yes, another is to raise admission standards to a level where almost nobody who got in could fail, which is what some European institutions do.