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The system design questions are (at least):

1. What is this education intended to optimise for?

2. What are the various participants (including students) optimising for?

3. What aligns 1 and 2?

The fundamental issue is that for almost all students, college is really job training in academic clothing. Universities will never admit this, and some professors delude themselves into believing it’s not true. But it’s the only explanation for why students would take enormous loans rather than simply get jobs.

But why else would you have a bunch of students join a class and cheat? Something like 22 out of the 27 perfect midterm students didn’t show up to the final? Obviously these people are not in it for the joy of learning.

So the answers to your questions are 1) learning 2) job-worthiness 3) measurements of 1 which accurately and plausibly reflect 2.

If a course does not plausibly reflect job readiness, or students’ grades do not reflect competence in the subject then the course must be fixed.

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