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In this paper I will present and analyse an experience that illustrates how venalism may operate in institutions of higher education, serving the financial and emotional interests of various stakeholders at various system levels, while simultaneously jeopardising the institutions' professed existential values and ideology. The term venalism has been used for the practice of selling offices in public administration and jurisdiction, common in France during the Middle Ages and the Ancient Regime. The experience described in-depth concerns my role as an external examiner in the conferral of a PhD degree to a particular candidate. My negative advice was ignored, not disseminated to the other external examiners, and not discussed by the examination committee. The PhD degree was awarded as usual. In analysing the social and emotional dynamics I include the larger context by discussing the pressures Dutch universities have to deal with and by pointing out the perverse consequences output finance may have. Furthering the understanding of the systems-psychodynamics of output finance is the main aim of this paper—my personal experience serves as an illustration.