"Procrastination and heroic effort at the last minute were the norm."
This may be true, but there are also plenty of students who work from the moment they wake up until the moment they go to bed and still don't have enough time to get all of their assignments done. The problem is that functionally there isn't really any difference between having a 3.5 GPA and a 2.0 GPA, so at some point most people figure out that what they're being asked to do is impossible so they might as well just do their own thing.
This may be true, but there are also plenty of students who work from the moment they wake up until the moment they go to bed and still don't have enough time to get all of their assignments done. The problem is that functionally there isn't really any difference between having a 3.5 GPA and a 2.0 GPA, so at some point most people figure out that what they're being asked to do is impossible so they might as well just do their own thing.