The article rings true to me. In college I met a lot of eager kids who worked hard and were good at... being students. They executed assignments diligently and knew how to get straight A's.

However, many of these kids lacked basic critical thinking skills. They didn't read the news or have much of an idea of what was happening in the world around them. They largely did what they were told and didn't have the guts to question professors.

I'll share an anecdote:

At the very first meeting of a statistics course, we were informed that our assigned professor was sick and a new professor would have to fill in. A kid sitting next to me said, "I already looked him up - he gives 60% A's. The last guy gave 65% A's." I asked the kid if the new professor was a good instructor. He gave me a dumbfounded look and repeated, "He gives 60% A's."