We have universities so students can have help with their work and their expert teachers about any issues they had with the study material. But since printing has become so efficient, a few hundred years ago, universities have gradually tapered off the long lecture times and have been given more and more reading assignments and homework. In fact, in classes that don't take attendance, many students do "just read", and when the classes do take attendance someone will usually beg the teacher to post the slides somewhere so they can read them... And do I even need to talk about how much reading is involved in professional academics?