[Drew_]

My time in college was 10 years ago, but absolutely none of that was true at the time (I personally seen pretty much everything you referred to as "not allowed"). I find it very hard to believe that much has changed since then.

[UncleMeat]

My spouse is a professor at a highly ranked US university. While these things are not completely impossible, there is major institutional pressure against this sort of authority amongst professors.

Things really have changed over the last decade.

[donavanm]

In Australia, two friends who are uni professors, one in admin/leadership position for their faculty, and my partner teaches some science undergrad courses in their phd topics. It is absolutely that bad with both subtle pressures and blatant failures aligning to progress fee paying students to completion regardless of competency or pedagogy.