I am not sure how colleges work, but even at reputable universities this happens. Professors who have big fail rates will often be reprimanded for this, regardless of whether it's their fault or not.
Yes, sometimes this genuinely indicates a problem with the professor in question, but often times this leads to a long chain of responsibility passing, where if say a Calculus professor was afraid to have big failure rates, the Fluid Mechanics professor will be in a tough spot where they can either push back and have high failure rates or be more lenient, after that the Aerodynamics professor will inherit the same issue and so on.
Yes, sometimes this genuinely indicates a problem with the professor in question, but often times this leads to a long chain of responsibility passing, where if say a Calculus professor was afraid to have big failure rates, the Fluid Mechanics professor will be in a tough spot where they can either push back and have high failure rates or be more lenient, after that the Aerodynamics professor will inherit the same issue and so on.