In the new era characterized by accelerated technological iteration and the collision of diverse values, the contradiction between college students’ personalized development and social rule constraints has become increasingly prominent, posing a major challenge to talent cultivation in colleges and universities. This paper takes Confucius’ thought of “doing as one pleases without overstepping the rules” as its cultural foundation and combines Freud’s “id-ego-superego” personality theory to analyze college students’ cognitive and value biases regarding rules, as well as practical dilemmas such as insufficient self-discipline and disconnection from implementation mechanisms. It demonstrates the value of cultivating the awareness of “autonomy within rules” from three dimensions: the state, colleges and universities, and individuals. Furthermore, it proposes practical strategies for ideological and political work in colleges and universities from the aspects of optimizing the educational content of ideological and political work, innovating educational methods, and deepening the integration of management and education, so as to provide a path for cultivating high-quality talents with both rule awareness and independent capabilities.