Milton Friedman’s recent column in the Nikkei fully confirms a conviction the author reached over forty years ago: academic credentials do not create greatness—mastery does.
While Japanese society worships elite universities, critic Shunsuke Tsurumi long ago argued that true originality and intellectual power often arise outside academia, a view now undeniably validated.
Global icons like Messi and Ichiro reached incomparable heights not through degrees but through absolute dedication to “what they must master.”
The U.S. student-loan crisis further exposes the emptiness of credentialism.
What matters is not where one studied, but whether one pursues and fulfills the work one is truly meant to master.

A message arrived from Goo earlier: “One year ago today.”
It referred to December 22, 2011.
In today’s Nikkei newspaper, on page 29, there is a continuation of Milton Friedman’s series “Easy Economics.”
I will introduce the article in a later chapter.
But today’s piece proves with 100% clarity the correctness of my “answer” and the greatness of my book (laughable as that may sound).
At the same time, it completely affirms what Shunsuke Tsurumi saw so clearly: that the so-called “University of Tokyo Law Faculty Disease” or “top-of-the-class syndrome” is meaningless.
Tsurumi stated that the real, genuine figures—those who matter—are often found outside the university system, even among those who rejected university entirely.
He described such individuals as “remarkable,” in the very book I recommend in my blog’s sidebar.
We need no examples like the recent string of arrests of former star rugby players from a certain university—people with no English ability, no logical reasoning, no cultural depth, no accumulation of true art, and driven only by greed, ending in downfall.
Even without such examples, the accuracy of Tsurumi’s insight and the correctness of what my book demonstrated are now undeniable.
More than forty years ago, while living in Kyoto, a sudden realization came to me, as I have written earlier:
“I do not need to go to university.”
My book also challenges the American credentialism that has driven U.S. universities into excessive investment merely to maintain appearances, resulting in skyrocketing tuition and producing millions of students crushed by unpayable loans.
In terms of living a true and fulfilled life, academic credentials mean nothing.
What matters is mastery—mastering the work one is destined to do.
To add a final note, consider how absurd credentialism becomes when the mass media grant authority even in the realms of Buddhist liberation or the world of the Shōbōgenzō merely because someone graduated from the University of Tokyo.
This week’s Shukan Asahi contains a perfect example.
To summarize what my book teaches: Messi has achieved “Shōbōgenzō” in football, and Ichiro has achieved “Shōbōgenzō” in baseball.
Neither attended the University of Tokyo.
Neither even attended university at all.
They never wasted time at provincial universities.
They had tasks they must do, goals they must achieve, and above all, something they must master.