Another thing to point out is that many colleges offer grants, scholarships, and work study such that the sticker price often isn't what gets paid.
This, friend, is precisely how it ought to be. The University is a guild and administers examinations. If you pass you are admitted to the guild. Just how you pass, that's up to you, but initiative is required. We won't wipe your ass or run you through the book, one chapter per lecture. That's part of the informal training.
No, in my experience it's that the undergraduate degree serves to get admission to a professional degree (MD, nursing, whateverelse the medical school here in town offers) that has next to nothing to do with what the first degree was about. Consequently, GPA is more important than knowledge, and with curved exams you see an unnatural hypercompetitiveness.
it’s performance that dictates whether you get to stay and whether you get promoted
It's more adeptness at office politics, but I'm a cynic and the institution is weak.