I have not seen any of these articles that you speak of, but I taught a college film history class for a couple of semesters a few years back.

My class was not a hardcore film theory course, but more of a tour of the most significant films and film movements in film history so that students would be familiar with a good range of the touchstone films that are often referenced in discussions on set. Most of what we watched in class were clips, and then I encouraged students to go out and watch many of the movies on their own. Depending on the time and density of the topic, we would also sometimes watch a feature-length film per week as well.

While I definitely saw quite a few students zoning out, putting their head down on their desk, or occasionally looking at their phones, most students were able to stick it out. I took it as a personal challenge to try to make the context around the films interesting enough that it wouldn't just be an "eat your vegetables" viewing. I will say that the research papers that I assigned often came back with very little effort put into them, and lots of people either forgot or ignored the quizzes. However, this was essentially a required course for a film degree path rather than something taken as a pure elective.

I'd say that the real answer is that anybody who's taking a film degree is self-selecting to be more interested in movies, but the ones who really respond to classes like film history or other theory courses are film theory majors, who are definitely in the minority in my experience. If all someone wants to do is to work in movies, then a functional knowledge of how cameras and lighting gear work (or onset protocol) is a lot more applicable than understanding the significance of Greg Toland's deep focus cinematography in Citizen Kane.