I have been in environments where students and staff are not good at STEM. In my current academic environment, most are highly motivated to learn STEM. I don't agree that people in academic environments are there because they failed elsewhere. In the world of research (my world), many chose academia over private because it's very difficult to do honest research in private industry which is mostly driven by profit. Not all academic research is unbiased, but yout got a much better chance there.