Requiring distopian spyware doesn’t weaken your brand. It destroys it. For most of history, reputable universities built their brand just fine without any software at all.

For most of history, in-person exams were possible.

Totally agree. I personally chose not to go to college (I'm graduating HS this year) because of things like Proctorio and Zoom becoming more common.

Honestly, it's fine to not choose higher education but IMHO use of surveillance methods should affect where you apply, not whether you apply.

No but it's very reasonable to wait a year before applying so that you don't pay out the nose for zoom classes (there are things like socialization and connections that make a super expensive college worth it)

It’s possible that some institutions are dictating blanket use of software, but where I am studying that’s not the case.

It’s basically up to the instructor on how to run the class.

Some require proctorio, some are on Zoom with lots of TAs to watch the screen, some issue an exam on your own time where the browser monitors what you do / visit, and others just offer take home projects.

Unless every other university also implements it, then it’s just par for the course

Yes. This is a problem for universities to solve, with the money they get from constantly expanding tuitions. This is one of many places in which a problem is cheap to "solve" if you are ok being racist/ablist/generally not adapting the variations in your customer base.

Handing over the solution for the problem to a software company shouldn't be an accountability shield for the Universities. Impacted students should sue the universities, and then they should sue the software company.

The role of universities is to provide education not to police students. People put in place reasonable means to detect cheating (proctorio isn't) and then it's students responsibility to learn. They're adults and should value what they get. If they don't, they're missing an opportunity.

It's not even the value of their brand - it's the value of all students' diplomas

Universities don't give a shit about that. And they shouldn't. A lot of diplomas are worthless, but that doesn't make the education worthless.

Ideally though, I've worked very hard to get certain knowledge. Diploma is a nice side-effect that's supposed to be a shorthand proof of it, but most companies in eg. software engineering would test candidates anyway, which is where knowledge helps, a degree, not so much.