This article considers the role of meritocracy in the ruling ideology of Singapore. It argues that meritocracy, far from being a system for the management of scarce resources, is in fact the imposition of scarcity. It uses the example of the university in Singapore as the prime site for the production of meritocratic ideology and considers the consequences of meritocratic higher education as it articulates with meritocracy more generally in the Singapore polity.