Not sure in the US but where I am from thats very much the case; they went to the paid per graduated student vs just student and students having loans vs state money (to study forever) and it turned the focus on churning out graduates from providing academic rigor. I saw the shift sharply studying and then teaching from late 90s to early 00s and as I see my nephews doing cs degrees now: it's really easy I would say, not the rigorous (not very practical outside academics) learnings I started with. Not sure if its good or bad, just an observation. We already had technical schools for exactly this purpose, but I guess the unis were running steep losses for the gov while not enough prominent research and related companies came out of them.

Academia is now vocational training but done badly. You get the pretend of academia and a very expensive loan as a bonus.