One interesting point is that public universities are sometimes used as dumping grounds for people who could not get into private universities, and politicians

One interesting point is that public universities are sometimes used as dumping grounds for people who could not get into private universities, and politicians also often want to expand classes for political reasons. Sometimes this can result in wholly unprepared people going to courses they will not pass, which does a disservice to the students, the professors and the university. I attended my public school just as CS was becoming a hot subject. My entering class had 300 CS students; by the time I graduated there were 900 incoming students into CS and many more clamoring to get in, and the program was struggling with such a fast expansion; but telling voters that we are expanding CS education sells well. On top of that the university had also been decreasing the amount of remedial core classes for students struggling as well.