Yeah, Murray Sperber called it the “faculty-student non-aggression pact" - “Professors don’t ask much of their students and students don’t ask much of their professors".

And a newer book called "Academically Adrift" found that students aren't learning much in college.

How do they get away with all this? One explanation is the signaling theory of education. A degree (and the prestige/selectivity/reputation of the school and program) is a proxy (signal) for IQ plus an indicator of persistence (toughing it out to make it through a degree program).