False dichotomy. What you call "not studying" would vary between effectively dropping out (for the people who are only at uni to get drunk and end up with a degree at the end), gaining a more thorough holistic understand of the material, or diving really deep on some of the aspects that are most interesting at the cost of others.

The drink-and-get-a-certificate people will indeed profit from being encouraged to study, but the controversial opinion here would be that university should only or mainly care about those.

Is it controversial to say that cramming (remember, we're talking about studying under the deadline of a coming test) is not a great way to learn for long-term retention?

Is it better than not studying at all? Probably... but not much.