One of my favorite professors put it in a different way. The classic approach is that they are lecturers first, and not teachers.

The professor is the master in their field. They go into class. They lecture on things based on their experience, answer questions, then leave. Students are there to make use of the faculty and the department to achieve their goals. If someone wanted to invent YouTube, they would go to university to study under someone who had invented some complex video compression & streaming algorithm etc. This is where universities output the outstanding individuals.

But in the 21st century, many universities are simply teaching institutions. They make sure the student understands and guide the poor ones. They make mediocre engineers, but dams and highways are built and maintained by mediocre engineers. The government unis were funded per head; literally the goal is to fill the lecture hall with as many heads as possible.

So I don't entirely disagree. In the end, my mom was not promoted to the level everyone expected of her, probably due to things like this. I do believe she actually replied to the important or thoughtful emails and just built this image of inaccessibility to seem fair to everyone.