All cultures have some form of financial medium. Michael Hudson is a good source on the history. Here is an interview from some years ago, on one of his more recent books;

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-about-his-forthcoming-book-the-collapse-of-antiquity-part-1.html

Consider its most basic function though, as an accounting device, as communities simply grew beyond the normal ability to keep track of the various favors and obligations any individual has with the group. Then consider how this concept would evolve within a group of tactile, object oriented, reductionistically thinking, ie, signals from the noise, creatures. Such that what functions as a public system of contracts, keeping account of one's communal assets and obligations, becomes a commodity in itself.

Then to the point today, where the numbers of these contracts being held in suspension within the financial system, vastly exceed actual, material value. The tool became the god. The medium became the message.

Here is an essay I wrote;

https://medium.com/discourse/the-worm-in-the-apple-of-modern-capitalism-a46081000d5a

As for the somewhat separate issue of higher education, I'm fully in agreement, that it has spiraled into some socially and culturally unstable rabbit holes.

Also due our various physiological biases.

Here is my most recent esay, trying to peel apart some of those;

https://johnbrodixmerrymanjr.medium.com/the-cliffs-edge-2b382ae2a73

Hopefully not getting carried away with the links, but it is a complicated situation.