I'd argue that most university faculty DO regard them very highly and do their best to foster/encourage students in that direction...
but...
K-12 education has become so bad this way that by the time higher ed sees these young people, most of them are hopelessly behind on the curve.
They expect to be given many chances to get it right, expect that A is for effort, expect that everyone will treat them with respect (regardless of their behavior), and expect that THEIR time is more valuable than anyone else's.
Honestly, secondary schools and their parents tend to coddle them too much for far too long.
My DH and I both believe that executive functions probably do NOT develop in the absence of load/demand. My hypothesis is that the reason why that maturation curve doesn't reach a peak functional level until the early-to-mid 20's in most modern humans is that we don't place adult DEMANDS on people until then. We have found the trend toward "It's okay, try again... it's okay, try again... here, let me fix that for you... oh, it's all right, always a second chance" to be kind of toxic, because it does rob adolescents of the drive to seek excellence. There are no consequences for not being responsible and diligent anymore-- and yes, I think that many times, parents are also part of that problem, but schools aren't doing their students very many favors either when they cave to pressure to inflate grades using whatever means necessary.
Someone who needs to take the (same) final exam four times hasn't earned an "A." Not IMO. I'm perhaps a bit more hard-nosed than most people about that kind of thing, but my feeling is that real life doesn't give a lot of second, third, and fourth chances at much of anything. High school kids should become acclimated to that.
