I'm not sure what country you are referring to,
but from my experience
getting into a decent university on a satisfactory course one should at
least have some good grades and a decent character. I try not to be
biased, but the American system seems to be slightly more acceptable to
people with lower qualifications or less motivation.
Obviously, if this were to be planned one would need criteria having to
be met (for example one can only be paid for edits on articles from ones
field of study).
"decent" being the operative word there. There are many unis that I
wouldn't describe as "decent". My experience is with UK unis, but I
think the same applies to varying degrees wherever you go (except
possibly China, from what I hear).