It was (to some degree), and could still be. The status quo was more effective, relatively speaking, before the AI boom. The status quo appears to be trending towards ineffective, post-AI boom.

So in order to remain useful, the status quo of higher education will probably have to change in order to adapt to the ubiquity of AI, and LLMs currently.

Just because you can cheat at something doesn't mean doing it legitimately isn't useful.