Isn’t part of this simply a struggle over the actual purpose of tertiary education?
Is it a training ground for careers? Is it a place to allow people to grow as individuals? Is it a place to allow professional and personal networks to develop? Is it a place to help individuals become skillful enough to improve their own or others’ situations? Is it a place to weed through people to decide which are apt enough to merit recognition as intelligent and/or skilled? Is it a system of certification? Is it a place to warehouse potential skilled workers so that they enter the job market a bit later in life?
The truth it that it’s all of these (and many more!), particularly in the US system. Unfortunately, way too many debates about higher ed, including in the debate going on in this very thread, seem to assume that it is and can be only one thing. This leads to a huge issue—quite often, including in the debate going on in this very thread, various participants presume, consciously or not, that their own idea of the purpose of tertiary education is The Only True Purpose, and then develop conclusions or critiques that work given their own assumption but not given others’.