<p>My feeling on it is this: anybody who can’t hack their chosen engineering program, who would quit rather than taking whatever steps were necessary (including transferring to a much less prestigious institution), are not the kind of people who would have done a lot of innovating, anyway. School is hard, sure; but doing something novel that people care about is almost impossible. At the undergraduate level, at all institutions I’m aware of, you can get by if all you can do is to follow instructions and show up at the appropriate times, having taken adequate steps to prepare yourself. Maybe some of the more prestigious places require an undergraduate research project and thesis… but if that’s the only stumbling block, nobody’s making you go there.</p>
<p>STEM majors are hard because the work is hard. At least the Academy is being genuine about that. If your question is whether I want to see universities succumb to more pressure from Industry… my answer is an emphatic “NO”.</p>