You are preaching to the choir here. There were French students studying here on exchange and something similar happened. People on exchange are generally on a glorified “vacation” as is sadly turning into tradition. You are probably correct about universities being less willing to outright fail students, but I really don’t see the relevance to simply being able to complete a program for most people (people who are that lazy will generally have some sort of other issues anyway). It happens all the time. In fact, if you look at some more rigorous universities, there are Olympic athletes that compete for their teams and complete their degrees. Best example of this is probably in rowing/crew.
In your honest opinion, do you really think that it is possible to train effectively and perform well when you are doing 70+ hours of study a week?
I have great doubts people are actually studying 70 hours a week. Again, some of the most rigorous programs in the world between the US and Europe do not come close to such demands. I think you are greatly overestimating things. There have been Australian students studying here and I have never heard of such insane hours of studying. In fact, even the medical schools here rarely approach that for an average week.
Those times you have mentioned refer to contact times with coaches. Athletes are often given other work to do outside of official training whether it is permitted by the NCAA or not.
Sure, they might. It is also common that they don’t do it. See T&F as a great example where some of the best are historically incredibly lazy.
I don’t think it is possible to train effectively if you study >70 hours a week. I do think it is bullshit that anybody is averaging anything close to 70 hours a week for much of the year.