> Why would they ever go to high school to begin with? Why not just drop? Same reason they all go - societal pressure.

Truancy laws aren’t societal pressure. They’re a threat, enforced, that if you don’t send your child to school men with guns will lock you up.

Disruptions and PITA do not want to be in school, for the large majority. For all of them, they do not want to be in that class. If they were free not to go they wouldn’t.

You’re quite right that standards have been dropped enormously since when academia was the pursuit of a small minority but they haven’t slipped to where someone of average intelligence can graduate from a four year university. Standards still exist.