Is student success academia’s failure?

Acheiving student success is complex as there is no clear definition or understanding of what it is and it will mean different things to different people. One of the things missing from the article for me, is the lack of comment relating to "value added". Has the student's time at University made a positive difference to the individual student, to other students at the institution, to the academics and members of the local community in which the University is based? Perhaps this should be the focus for framing the right questions, quantifying the base level on entry and the (higher) level on exit and beyond?

The article avoids the relationship between 'success' and all-too-common fact of soft assessment (grade inflation), the allocation of unearned marks to students.