Yes. That's what happens if you tell every child they are the best through their childhood. Now suddenly nobody want their bubble burst.

The other side of the same coin is this: I TA'ed college physics (more like high school physics) when I was working on my PhD. The school was not the best, but it was like top-10 in medical and pharmacy. And a lot of my students were from these departments.

We had to give them a pre-test before final. The final would reuse the same problems. And there were people failing the tests. I didn't understand why; I still don't. I mean it's an A for free, why not take it? Why fail...?

I guess you could say that's because it's not their major, so they don't pay attention. But it's still a required course. They had to retake it and pay real money for it. I also knew for a fact that they did care. Some of them cried when we told them we would not give them "bonus credits".