The college example doesn’t seem likely though. Exams are set by central authorities and independently adjudicated. It’s not up to teachers whether students pass or not, and parents and education authorities look at exam results to judge colleges, not teacher assessments.
Not sure if you have in mind entrance exams or something that's not set by professors (he mentions mid-terms). Or perhaps you have your local example in mind.
This however is absolutely the case in my country, exam questions are set by the teachers, and are graded by them (well, often also by postgraduates given this task by the teacher so they can slack).
As for the US, I did a quick search now, and found this: "Unlike final exams, which are scheduled by the university’s Registrar, midterm exams are typically scheduled during class time by the professor. Some classes may have two midterm exams, in which case they are spread further throughout the semester. Professors outline these exams in the course syllabus, so they will not come as a surprise. The weight of each midterm exam on the final grade is also usually provided in the course syllabus. Many instructors are open to telling students about the format of the midterm exam, as well as the topics or themes that the exam will cover."
So looks like it's on the instructors, as the grandparent says there too.
I am not sure how colleges work, but even at reputable universities this happens. Professors who have big fail rates will often be reprimanded for this, regardless of whether it's their fault or not.
Yes, sometimes this genuinely indicates a problem with the professor in question, but often times this leads to a long chain of responsibility passing, where if say a Calculus professor was afraid to have big failure rates, the Fluid Mechanics professor will be in a tough spot where they can either push back and have high failure rates or be more lenient, after that the Aerodynamics professor will inherit the same issue and so on.
… what? I’ve been in (US) academia for most of my adult life and I’ve never once heard of an exam that wasn’t written and graded by the person who taught the class (and/or their teaching assistants).
This is pretty common outside of the USA. Many Euro universities and Indian universities do this to standardize results so student's GPA is comparable across the board
Oh, you really think this doesn't happen. Where I (in Australia) the conditions you paint were accurate for most of my life. In fact they remain accurate for Australian's attending Australian educational institutions now for the most part.
But about 20 years ago, Australia decided to adopt the US model for education - educational institutions should compete for student dollars, just like your local coffee shops compete for customers. This boiled down to allowing educational institutions to charge students what they wish for educating them and the money the government used to give the educational institutions would go to instead low cost loans, and upfront payments for enrolling students so the they didn't pay full price. It sounds reasonable on the surface, well worth a try.
But it was insane to try it in Australia because it has already been tried in the USA where the result was the student debt fiasco. The end result in the lower levels was exactly the same as in the USA, with educational institutions preying on student naivety giving away laptops in return for signing up to very expensive long term courses. Very few completed the courses, so they didn't get that long term money, but they didn't incur the expense of educating anyone either. They got the bulk of their income by getting the government money for signing up the students. The cost was advertising and the giveaways like the laptop. To your point, when the government attempted to clamp down by paying only for graduating students, they simply graduated them regardless of their grades. The model has since been abandoned, of course.
This predatory approach didn't work in the Uni's. I think Uni students and their parents are in general too smart to fall in a long term debt trap, and rendering Uni Bachelor certificate meaningless scared too many people - business and governments alike. But they could and did, and do play the same game with overseas students. Professors are under immense pressure to graduate them, so they get the degree they paid for. There I've seen first hand Professors (Professors in Education no less), sit down with an international student and re-write their assignments for them so they could pass them. They despised it. But the government had reduced funding of local students to force them to become "lean and mean", so to survive they had no choice.
You don't hear about this a lot because everyone involved on the education side is literally trying to keep their job. Broadcasting the educational institution they work for hands out worthless grades undermines that, so it's a conspiracy of silence.
