Backed by the federal government, the excellence movement in education has advocated higher college admissions requirements and reliance on nationally administered standardized tests. Although intended to benefit the public welfare, these recommendations actually discourage learners considered less worthy. When discussing the movement's mental health implications, one must consider community psychology concepts (equality, supremacy, preeminence, authority, responsibility, rejection, and others) related to individuals' interactions. Essentially, excellence is a function of individual aspiration and accomplishment. When excellence is viewed as a collective property, an inappropriate transformation has occurred that is open to abuse. Institutions, groups, and other collectivities are obligated to serve others adequately, not excellently. Drawing on the work of Polybius, an ancient Greek historian, this paper argues that the excellence movement's attempts to transfer an individual, personal privilege into a social obligation is inapppropriate, misguided, and ultimately pathological. Polybius feared that subsequent generations of authority holders reared in a privileged atmosphere would abandon their high responsibility in favor of avarice and other excesses. Today's educators should not be so quick to condemn the U.S. system of universal education as mediocre, nor to adopt exclusionist higher education policies. Our educational system will be strengthened by maintaining its twofold goal of community advancement and individual progress. Included are four references. (MLH)