(Also, there should be electives, but the rigorous backbone of a degree should be mandatory, so "students won't choose this course" doesn't come up.)
Out of curiosity, which US university did you attend? I went to a well-known and highly-regarded public university in California, and they absolutely did not coddle their students. Poor-performing students regularly washed out.
Perhaps you also don't have a comprehensive picture as to what is available to students across every university in Europe. Europe, like America, is a big place and, like America, the situation probably varies by institution. As with most things, the answer is probably more nuanced than general observations would make it seem.
Which university did you attend? I asked you once already; put up or shut up.
I, my parents, my in-laws and my siblings are all academics. I don't need to prove anything to you. My brother is faculty at an ivy and literally what I am describing is what is currently going on in his department because the administration has foisted MBA brainrot "performance metrics" that are easily gamed by students and faculty who don't particularly care to teach but need points in their portfolios.
Students are entitled "I'm the customer, and I'm always right and I'm paying you a lot" twats who get the administration to bail them out if they don't get As for half-assed work. It's similar but not as bad at R1 state universities where I work and have worked.
You are completely out of touch and which university you or I attended in the 90s (two generations ago) is completely irrelevant.
Students can ask for whatever they want. It doesn’t mean they will get it, unless maybe they are VIPs at Ivy League schools, and those are a sliver of the total population of university students. Don’t mistake the minuscule minority for the majority.
You’re letting your personal experience cloud the full and diverse picture of reality. Consider that we may both be right depending on the circumstances.
The only cost of an incomplete is it doesn’t help towards a degree, but a degree is just a signaling mechanism. If you want to be able to use their degree to signal something to someone, you will have to jump through their hoops.
As AI eats up the need for half-assed "I googled a few things and wrote something up and then slacked off for five hours" white-collar-paperwork jobs, it's gonna be pretty hard for people not willing or able to demonstrate that they can do anything that couldn't just be fully done with an "agent" instead.
What is your expectation from such a class? What are you hoping to get out of it?
If you merely want a tutor that will help you out navigate a topic you are interested in, with no strings attached, then sure, yes. No need to take exams.
But if the goal is to get a formally recognized degree in some topic, then you will need to accept that there will be oversight over how you understand that topic. Because the institutions granting those degrees need to sign them off. And if they care about their reputation, they would be interested in signing off only on those students, who actually understand the topic.
So there will need to be exams. In the AI era, it is close to impossible to guarantee that a remote exam will accurately evaluate your understanding of a topic. So the exams would need to be carried out in person.
There is nothing children-specific in using such approach. It is merely one of the few still somewhat objective ways to actually test people's understanding of some topic.
If so, how would an adult be treated while still expecting them to demonstrate mastery?
If not, what do you think a reasonable expectation for an adult should be?