Excellent idea - retake any class once for nominal cost (and you've already got the textbooks).
Generally, universities are insolvent, being propped up by infinite government-backed loans leveraged against students' future earnings. In turn faced with an endless supply of funding, they've become wastrels and signed up for too many bills which they must cover by incessantly demanding more funding from debtor students. The model created a feedback loop that most universities will find terminal once policy changes out of necessity.
I'm afraid they will likely only hear "retake classes infinitely" as booting students severs revenue. Failing students however, makes that revenue renewable. Corruption is cancer both financially and morally.
Colleges might be letting more people through, but I dont think people are any dumber. Some people just aren't concerned with understanding everything they come across. Some kids go to college for no other reason than that's what they're supposed to do. If they cared they would be able to learn just as much as you or anyone else.
Thanks for the reminder that memory isn't perfect haha
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...
Once you get below the top N% in intelligence levels (5%-20% in my experience), the ability to 1) understand any kind of complex systems, 2) read, understand, contextualize and retain data, and maintain any rigorous logical thinking structure (e.g., keeping previously eliminated options eliminated) declines rapidly.
The result is that, despite having absolute record numbers and percentages of people educated with college degrees, we have massive anti-science movements that are literally killing thousands of people daily, by ape-ing scientific-sounding terms & distorting concepts & data in order to more effectively broadcast disinformation - and hordes lap it up.
We even have nurses and healthcare workers, who supposedly have been taught and passed tests on basic germ theory, actively resisting and campaigning against safe and effective public health measures.
A related phenomenon is that college degrees are systematically being degraded. I personally know someone who was a visiting professor at a US State University, teaching introductory economics. He found that many of the students didn't even have the math skills (or motivation) to understand and wield the basic concepts on assignments, classroom discussion, and tests, and of course he was recommending them to remedial options and failing them. He was explicitly ordered by the administration to pass them or quit. He quit.
Sadly, it is looking more and more like this great experiment in college for all is not working out as hoped. Instead of a culture of wisdom, we have a culture of sophomores - literally wise fools, who know very little, but think they know it all, and therefore don't have to listen to any expert who actually has real knowledge.
It is considered obvious that at 5'6"/168cm, I was not born with the attributes necessary to engage in a professional basketball career. Yet the same kind of sorting based on intelligence is considered something to not discuss, perhaps getting too close to eugenics.
I strongly believe that the opportunity should exist for any person to get whatever level education they want, without financial or other obstacles. But, with the caveat that it cannot be dumbed-down - either you can understand and do the work and pass, or you do not. The practices seen above, and grade inflation in general need to be reset. The problem is that failing your students is bad for business, so unlikely that most colleges will reform.