Sure, they can do it for them - but the purpose of college is not to write papers. The papers are so that the students can demonstrate that they understand the subject and that they have "learned to learn". If an LLM writes it for them then they haven't proven anything other than that they can prompt an LLM. Which is great if your college degree is for "LLM prompting", but not much else.
I hope people that use LLMs to generate papers fail in other tests, else the value of a degree will be reduced to nothing - it's already suffering from a lot of "inflation" due to lowered standards and oversupply. (The lowered standards are because graduation rate became a metric and a target)
"but the purpose of college is not to write papers. The papers are so that the students can demonstrate that they understand the subject and that they have "learned to learn"."
That depends on the perspective. In theory, that is the correct view. To many, the degree is just a piece of paper used to gatekeep jobs.
It's not just a piece of paper - it's a piece of paper that shows you can complete a 4-year course of study in a particular field. I'm not sure how useful a piece of paper that says you spent 4 years typing prompts into a LLM could be without a huge change in how education works.
I'm not sure how you think those two things are different. Right now, we have people graduating a 4 year course of study in a particular field and spending a large part of that 4 years using LLMs to do a lot of the work.
I hope people that use LLMs to generate papers fail in other tests, else the value of a degree will be reduced to nothing - it's already suffering from a lot of "inflation" due to lowered standards and oversupply. (The lowered standards are because graduation rate became a metric and a target)