This could be great for university. Suddenly thousands of mediocre low effort papers are no longer sufficient to get a degree. Many students will have to put in real work. Others won't graduate and have to look at trade school or alternatives. College degrees will go back to meaning the holder has an advanced, specialized education and no longer be required for low end jobs as a bad filter.
I've seen a rather disturbing amount of malfeasance by educators, where they award the highest grade to anyone who even moderately puts in an effort. Many educators even waving away their responsibility to accurately determine aptitude and assign grades accurately.
Grade grubbing alone has infiltrated even the most prestigious, and I find it hard to believe that the average student is that much better than their counterparts up to 70 years ago. Even the average student at these institutions. I just don't believe we can trust educators to do their job. I remember arguing back and forth with an educator who believed their only job is to 'educate', where if someone learned something, then they have done their job. I could not believe it. I'd understand if it was from a grade school perspective, but this person was teaching at a university. Another educator on HN no more than a few weeks ago in a related thread said their perspective is to not deal with the students, parents, and administration who will hound them about grades, they said something along the lines of "giving people an A will stop this, and who cares anyway? The best of the best will go on to do research, side projects, etc. anyway".
Speaking towards the article, "Humanities" absolutely deserve their reputation, even among research where they have a perpetual replication crisis, hilarious events such as Sokal and Grievance Studies affairs. If you don't want this reputation, take a hit towards funding, call out poor research, in fact don't allow poor research to even get near publication. Reject more students. It is clear standards are low, raise them, significantly. You can make mistakes, but I hardly if ever see them corrected in a timely fashion. I should not see articles where a US state is considered to be higher in terms of voter suppression compared to North Korea.