If it's simply pay to win then the value of a degree from an institution falls to absolutely zero. If the product a student is buying is a credential that's supposed to say "I know and can do things, pay me money please" then in order for that credential to fulfill its objective then low performing and mediocre students ("weeds") need to be filtered out. Otherwise, employers and the wider world will quickly realize the credential is meaningless.
Failing to teach a student ≠> the student is mediocre.
The student is mediocre ≠ the student is irredeemable and didn’t deserve an education in the first place.
Honestly, it’s wild to me how reluctant people are to accept that teachers have a responsibility to teach their students.
They will charge you $2000 a credit hour to have a teacher teach you — as if the teacher alone is the gatekeeper of an education — and then claim that the teacher is not in any way responsible for the student’s success or failure in being taught.
How is saying some students get weeded out the same thing as saying the teacher has zero responsibility to teach any of their students? Whether or not you pay or get paid to be at an educational institution, you should be weeded out (early, preferably) if you aren't going to put in your part.
A portion of the educator's role is weeding out students who are not wanting/able to engage with the material before they spend a massive amount of time and money towards stepping stone classes to something they won't try/be able to complete. A portion of the student's role is weeding out the teachers and institutions which are more interested in maximizing the money out of the student instead of teaching them well. The two weeding processes actually reinforce the right outcome together - students getting educated instead of wasting their resources.
Why take money from someone you know you can’t teach?
The reality is that prestigious universities routinely take money from incredibly talented people who are fully capable of learning calculus with or without a good teacher, the university gives them a careless or actively harmful teacher, and then the student is deemed a “weed” that was rightfully put in their proper place.
When you look at it this way, it’s clear that people are being scammed. Maybe that’s why universities are so reluctant to accept accountability for their teaching quality, blaming the students first and foremost.
Why assume they always know ahead of time? I was a good student in high school and a shit student right after, it wasn't the professors fault for lacking a crystal ball on that. A decade later I did my part out of genuine interest to learn and it went great.
Again, weeding does and needs to happen on both sides because there is more than one type of reason students fail to learn. That is in no way the same thing as saying it's never the teacher's fault, it's saying there are reasons to weed out for all that need to participate properly who aren't. No amount of money exchange changes that education is a two way street in effort.
See the problem here?