US-based community college is mostly just a bait and switch fraud. There inevitably are weed-out classes where you can be weeded out of programs or college entirely simply by having the unfortunate luck to attend them. Usually positioned in critical preparatory or transfer coursework needed for a degree program, its mostly not about knowing the material, but dealing with the disadvantaged structure, and having limited resources to attend college in the first place.

I've personal experience in an engineering program, where this was common practice in the 3-class core physics courses. 3 question-20step/q test where each subsequent question is dependent on the answer to the previous question. This is the causality spiral of doom, where you either get it perfect, or you don't pass, but you have to get it perfect 6 times in a row to pass the class. By the time you take the first test, you can't get a refund, and if the answer doesn't match perfectly with Pearson or Canvas's material, good luck you just wasted $10-15,000 in living expenses during the time you tried. Try again. and again. and maybe by time 8 or 10 you decide its just not a program for you anymore, and you run into the same issue with the supposedly easier classes in the business program, or drop out completely.

Some professors take it a step further by adjusting the rounding strategy between those questions instead of following the same significant digits. Its deceitful lying meant to sell you a pipe-dream which you'll never be able to complete unless you get lucky, and that's just one example. I've almost 15 years worth of examples, in a broad geographic area.

Its one of the most egregious deceitful lies we are told as people entering college. Education is only an investment when you can get something back from that investment. If you just need that paper because anyone without it is not qualified, then it doesn't matter what you know (as many professionals I've met have demonstrated they lacked crucial skills and had no inclination to fix their shortfalls).

Not even close to meritocracy, I've passed and completed up through DiffEQ and Linear Algebra math wise which require Calculus 3 as a pre-requisite. No issues with math, but I have yet to pass a Mechanics of Solid course because of structure. Its structured to fail people. Eventually people give up trying to be engineers and try business only to find the same thing in the economic's courses. Its such corrupt deceitful bad behavior, and impacts those who have to pay their own way through more than others.

I had an online econ class this past semester which had all the same hallmarks, worse, the professor was collecting a paycheck, and instead of lecturing simply referred us to Khan Academy movie links and Pearson's Autograder (which routinely failed on correct answers, and no exceptions were being made regardless, i.e. its the student not the professor or pearson were in the wrong).

Any other industry doing these same business practices would be sued or shut down for outright fraud and unfair and deceptive business practices. Because its state funded its somehow exempt from all those same rules. Also the only path to correct is escalating to the chair/dean/trustees rarely ever has any action taken. The people responsible for advocating are the same people that have let this continue for decades.

They don't track metrics that would quickly show problems so they can fix them. My local colleges say they don't track how many students in each class have taken the same class or professor before and failed, and the graduation rates as we all know are abyssal.