Universities really aren't set up for meritocracy, and it's mostly because of funding. No uni is going to fail you when you pay £100k+, whether borrowed or not. Essentially, you are going to stay there, wasting your youth and potential until you either pass or cannot afford it anymore.

However, if the universities are funded by the government, whether fully or partially, then the state of education is directly linked to the political stability and ideology of the party in power. A dictator can just rise to power and have schools teach students that the leader has magical/supernatural abilities and powers to fix the economy and shortages. This is pretty much what happened in Romania after the communist takeover.

Either way, in practice, universities are never truly about fulfilling the potential of great minds, but exploiting the pockets of the highest bidder and becoming its ideological slave.

Unless you go to a 'prestigious' university (aka your employer knows about it / went there) you're wasting your money and time.