The system of belt ranking that many modern martial arts schools use was invented by Kanō Jigorō the founder of Judo. It was originally devised as a tool to allow students to measure their training progress and to give greater granularity to martial arts training. Students would be able to track their progress against the expectations of whatever belt level they were supposed to be.
The Black Belt symbolizes for many people the highest achievement that one can achieve in any art. Tell someone who does not study martial arts that you have a black belt or black sash in any art and you immediately become viewed as an authority or expert in whatever art you supposedly study. Sometimes people have multiple black-belts in different martial arts styles and are expected to be experts across many disciplines. In Kung-Fu there were three levels - Student, Disciple and Master. You were a student from the time you started your studies until you displayed a certain level of competency. Masters would then make the most promising of their students disciples and teach them more of their art and include teachings previously unavailable to students. Discipleship was given to students who were not only sound technicians but also displayed strength of character. Then after further training, refinement and many years of long and hard study. A disciple would become a master himself.
You can purchase any belt or sash you want from any martial arts supply store. It doesn't make you any more skilled than you were previously. A black belt merely signifies that you have displayed a certain competency while studying your chosen art. It can be like getting a college degree after four years. You are competent in your chosen field but you are by no means an expert in your area. Just like the quality of an education varies between schools so does the quality of black-belts vary between students. Some schools promote their students on a much more lenient scale and require less from a black belt or black sash student than do other schools.
There is a danger of putting too much emphasis on the belt or sash that you wear. Sometimes people get obsessed with belts. They become so focused on the next belt and getting to the mythical black belt that it becomes a race. Never satisfied with truly grasping their current level, they are in a huge hurry to get to whatever is next so that they can get to the promised rank - the black belt/black sash. Rank fuels their ego and finally there is a point where the ego is so big that they finally assume that they have learned all their is to know about their chosen art and finally they quit. Sometimes it is because they get humbled during class after sparring a student who they assumed was inferior because they had a lesser rank. Once they get humbled by the lower ranking student, the ego cannot take the bruising so they question the material instead of questioning their commitment to training.
In my 8 years of studying Shaolin Kung-Fu, I am always amazed at how much more there is to learn. Just when I think I have gotten to a level of competency, there is an additional level to get to. There are not just additional physical challenges, but mental and spiritual ones as well. You have to learn how to subdue the ego so that you aren't so impressed by your own achievements. You merely have to set the bar higher for yourself, to try to improve so that you were better than you were the last time you were in class. To make it to the next training session/class. As the Old Master wrote in the Tao Te Ching - "The Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". Focus on the next step, not the journey.
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