I used to be adjunct faculty in art at a UC. It is the worst of presumptive bureaucracies.
People forget that isn't just about the logo it's about the positioning of the brand within the economic marketplace. Plenty of analytics, surveys, strategy etc etc is involved.
If not, then they clearly did something wrong, so why should we give any weight to the rest of their conclusions? If so, why are they acting so shocked?
As for them being shocked. It is always surprising when people become so passionate about a brand.
If they anticipated the backlash, but decided not to care (because their target audience is the NEXT generation, as you suggest), then why are they surprised that this generation is responding poorly. They saw it coming and decided not to care.
As a UC alumnus, I certainly saw that new logo and thought "what the hell is this??" -- GREAT point about the color bring wrong, for example. If it were better communicated that it wasn't meant to replace the seal, I might have liked it better, but it already seemed ugly to me, even before I read about what it was intended for.