Contrary to popular belief, selective universities do little to serve social mobility, and in fact tend to serve the interests of more affluent families in securing positions for their children in better paid, more interesting, and more secure positions in society. Tenure-line professors are beneficiaries of this process; they have remarkable privileges that few other professionals enjoy, such as high pay and almost unparalleled levels of job security and control over their daily work life. The paper tackles the question of what obligations go along with these privileges: what obligations do professors have to their students, and to other members of society, and how could they better deliver on those obligations?