Your third paragraph implies a model of education and preparation for leadership that will actively work against the goal articulated in the last sentence of your second paragraph.

PS: what meaning are you attaching to the word 'society' here?

Ok, let me please elaborate, I know "assembly line" and "raw materials" sound awful, and I appreciate that you did not simply down-voted, btw.

The way I see it, Education (at any level) is a process of self transformation. You cannot really purchase Education, you just pay for the opportunity to be part of that process. In this sense, your self at the time of admission is the raw material, your actualized self at the time of graduation is the final product, while the body of students can be considered the total inventory of product in process.

Second, every process of self actualization is Hard with capital H. It requires lots of work, and can be stressful (or even painful) at times. There are no shortcuts. It requires diligence to push through all that work, and perseverance in times when you feel like crap because it seems that you are never going to make it. Professors are guides and mentors, but ultimately you educate yourself. And because of this, no outcomes can be guaranteed.

Traditionally, Universities were modeled after medieval guilds. Professors, as guild masters before them, accepted candidates and teach them the art of the guild. They did not do so because they were not nice guys, but for a profit motive (Universities nowadays directly in the fees they charge, Guilds in the past indirectly through apprentices' free labor).

If the apprentice/student persevered for a fixed number of years, they received the social recognition of being competent in the art of the guild. In the Guild, apprentices became journey-man which gave them the right to practice their art in the territory controlled by the Guild and to receive a salary for it. In University, the undergraduate is considered a knowledgeable person in their major and (though we like to pretend that higher education is not job training) eligible for jobs that require specialized qualifications. In neither case does this imply that the student is now considered equals with the teacher.

For the undergraduate/journeyman to be considered equals with their professor/master, they have to pursue more self directed, advanced education for an undefined number of years. In both cases, the candidate must present a proof of competence in the art beyond what is expected from mere practitioners: For the journeyman it's called "master piece", for the graduate student "PhD thesis". This proof is presented to a group of masters including but not limited to your mentor, and they measure, debate and maybe approve it. If that last is the case, you are considered now to be a peer of them.

None of this fact seem to be common knowledge among undergraduate students, and Universities make no effort to disabuse them of their ignorance. Instead, they are now following a service industry model where every customer receives a standardized, repeatable service, and customer satisfaction is paramount. Until the day that we invent machines such as those in the first "Matrix" movie - where specific information and skills can be downloaded to your brain by direct manipulation of your neuronal patterns using electromagnetic impulses inside your skull - this model will only mess up with the older model of apprentice/master transfer of knowledge through the hard but proven self actualization process.

I don't silently downvote ever.

"It requires diligence to push through all that work, and perseverance in times when you feel like crap because it seems that you are never going to make it. Professors are guides and mentors, but ultimately you educate yourself."

This is a much richer view than the original comment, but I'll need to work through your later paragraphs. Thanks for taking the time needed to formulate the response.