Hey Sealynx - my condolences for being in "higher" ed... <sarcasm>.
My experiences started when I finally overcame the bureaucratic hurdles to get accepted/registered - at 28. Then, being ostracized because I did the assignments, enjoyed them, got good grades, and felt more comfortable with the faculty than my immature classmates. In fact, I felt a bit cheated and disappointed at the level of material.
Later, I taught tech subjects FT at the CC level... and then spent 9 years managing online ed software systems & integrations...while training my underpaid/overworked faculty in how to teach with it. I've become well-acquainted with a lot of the issues and yeah, some people even listen to my opinion!

Any discussion of ed comes back to the fact that we no longer fail students, nor set absolute criteria for grades - you can always challenge a grade and many students do. Back ups of online courses are frequently called upon to prove that the student didn't do the work required. But in their minds - that shouldn't matter. Why? Because they were passed along when they were younger, they didn't become acquainted with the old-fashioned concept of "learning from your mistakes"... oh no - we couldn't even point out those mistakes. At my husband's CC, 70% of the students are enrolled in remedial courses simply to bring their skills up to the range of college-level work.
A common complaint I've heard from faculty, is that the student strongly believes that it's the instructor's responsibility to magically transfer "knowledge" to them... and that simply attending class is enough to "qualify" them in that knowledge. The result, that I've seen first hand when hiring students... is that they are resentful of being expected to actually DO work and literally don't know how to do many things - and have no interest in how things work, how to make things, how to solve problems. If you just ignore the problem, it will "go away"... because one can't fail.
This translates into an economy of workers who don't know HOW and don't WANT to "make things" - i.e., manufacturing or solve problems - i.e., creative innovation. Thankfully, my soapbox rant is a wide generalization. There are some very notable exceptions and schools are seeing an increase in young people wanting to learn real hands-on skills. It may take another generation or so, but the pendulum will swing back around... away from the "I'm so special... so I'm entitled" mentality.
and don't get me started on the administrations... sigh. They'll be the last to "get it".