The education industry has been lowering the bar for admission to higher learning for half a century or more, while dumbing down the content of high school and even primary school education. All because we can’t have children feeling bad.
It’s terribly ironic that things like calculus, linear algebra and matrix manipulation were being weeded out of the curriculum, right before machine learning took off.
What you're talking about are specific local policy changes at specific school and equating random trends to some sort of ... "kids these days" message.
If we're talking about the US; then it's simply the very healthy and functional economic inventive of students taking out lifetime loans to pay school tuition for schools that have not actually risen in quality or format in 40 years. The more students; the more money to the school board! Lower those bar riiight down!
Lazy kids these days amiright!