I want to make one distinction. Being smart and being empowered academically are not necessarily the same. Many times I succeeded in class without once raising my hand to input my ideas, without ever going for help during office hours, without ever centering the education I was receiving on myself. There are numerous factors that contribute to academic disempowerment outside of the student-professor relationship. The university has also created this environment, one that discourages interaction through large, impersonal lecture halls.
Somebody has to die.
While large classes may save time and money for the university, they often reduce the student to a casual observer of education. Many times I felt I barely had enough weeks in the quarter to absorb what was being said, memorize it and reproduce it on an exam. Forget about understanding, and don't even mention analyzing anything myself. In addition, we have been conditioned to view education as a competition. I wish all the students that are hollering about racial quotas would wake up and notice the grade quotas that have everybody scrambling to get to the top of the curve.