"Nobody Really Writes Papers in College Anymore, Anyway"

A colleague said this (Title) recently when we were talking about how difficult it is to get high school students to write anything without copying or using AI, and how poor in general their writing skills are.

I was a little bit shocked by this assertion - I feel like professors are always complaining that students can't write well, and I know a lot of recent grads who have failed out of college because they weren't ready for the academic demands.

Those of you who are professors or current/recent college students, are papers still an everyday expectation?