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A huge part of how we got here was that universities painted themselves into a financial corner after student loans were federally underwritten so that they had to prioritize first student services and then student retention (at all costs).
This created conditions in which small numbers of activists on any given campus (with some orbit of readily manipulated sympathizers in the students and faculty, egged on by activist professors) could bully entire institutions into ridiculous positions out of financial fear.
How? Once student loans were federally underwritten, universities realized they had a cash cow of infinite money and started to act like businesses competing for customers, mostly through "student services" like campus gyms and amenities. Expensive investments. Big mortgages.
It's hard to explain just how expensive these kinds of additions to campuses can be, but many, if not most, bigger schools probably went half a billion in debt over a decade and a half or so, to guess. Maybe half that, but still A LOT. Tuition skyrocketed to pay for it.
Normally, universities would be a lot more careful to jack up tuition, especially as states were cutting budgets (sometimes for good, sometimes for bad reasons), but they had infinity guaranteed income from federally underwritten student loans, so no problem!
The costs of this idiotic planning were (1) an arms race for more student services, (2) coddling whiny students as a student service, and (3) an absolute prioritization on retaining students ((1) attracts them, (2) helps retain them, as does grade inflation, etc.).
Go listen to just about any faculty meeting on a university campus today. Student retention is almost ALWAYS a top priority, and diversity, inclusion, etc., are seen as necessary parts of it because the activists have created that nightmare for administrators.
There are rarely such crystal clear examples of how badly thought-out progressive policy can actually tank a society as this, once you connect the dots and see how the universities (which were already full of radical activists by the 90s) have basically wrecked us all.
