I believe it is a state of corruption in higher education. Although the vast majority of colleges are "non-profit", everyone has a bottom line. That means getting as many kids into four year school as possible. It means stacking classes and requirement that shoe horn kid into completing school in 4.5 to 5 years. It means charging fees for "technology" access. It mean required book activation codes to force students to buy books for hundreds of dollars rather than for pennies on the Internet.
It means creating worthless degrees programs with little or zero job prospect. It means grade inflation in worthless degree programs so students stick it out 5 years to graduate. And finally it takes a bloated trillion dollar federal loan program to finance this scheme to keep over paid professors and administrative bureaucrats fat and happy.
Outside of math and science, all you need to do for a degree is repeat back the progressive line to your lefty professors and you’ll graduate with honors!