At the end of the day you can't force people to learn if they don't want to.

As a society we need to be okay with failing people who deserve to fail and not drag people across the finish line at the expense of diluting the degrees of everyone else who actually put in effort.

I only partially agree with "you can't force people". I think that all people are just like children, but bigger. You can force a kid to not eat to much sugar, even when they want to.

Same with education, for example you can financially force people to learn, say, computer science instead of liberal arts. Even when they don't like it. It's harder, less efficient, but possible.

I'm not sure why we care about the degree. Employers care about the degree, but they aren't paying for my education.

The students who want to learn, will learn. For the students who just want the paper so they can apply for jobs, we ought to give them their diploma on the first day of class, so they can stop wasting everybody's time.

Then employers will stop caring about the degree...

Employers want the degree because it's supposed to verify that you have a certain set of knowledge and/or skills, or at the very least, you're capable of thought to the extent required to get that degree. That's the only reason they want it.

Student being unable to unwilling to learn that knowledge or acquire those skills should mean they don't get that degree, they don't get those jobs, and they go work in fast food or a warehouse.

"Just give them the degree" is quite literally the worst possible solution to the problem.