WHERE THE RESPONSIBILITY LIES. Two Rate Your Students posts make the case that academic mediocrity requires enablers. Sometimes it's retention run amok.

My institution use to have a policy that if a student missed more than six hours of class time they could be withdrawn by the instructor. Then some a****** in middle management decided that was unfair to students who only enrolled to keep their full time status and collect grants and loans. The result on attendance is just what you would imagine.

The effect on the poster's morale is evident.

Sometimes it's a convex combination of assessment and faith in a business model.

At my university, instruction is assessed along three metrics: student evaluation numbers, number of drops, and class grade point average. This is a brilliant bit of administrative jujitsu that allows chairs, deans, vindictive senior faculty etc. to punish nearly any non-tenured faculty member they want. People with high student evaluation numbers almost always either get rid of the deadwood early on (leading to high drops), or grade easily (leading to high class GPA). On the other hand people with low drops and/or low class GPAs get worse evaluations.

Not assessed: the job placement and career paths of the graduates. There are market tests.