I have been following real estate for several years now and actively engage with real estate investors globally, both professional institutions and general portfolio managers.

So if you buy right you add more income to your qualifying scenario, if you buy wrong well then you are digging a deeper and deeper hole or you'll have to just make more money in your day to day job to counter your paper loss on your qualification side of things- With commercial loans they look at "global cash flow," and they generally want all of your cash flow including your job, rentals, businesses, etc to usually cover all your expenses by 1.25X minimum so if you have negative cash flow rentals or are buying wrong theres no guarantee they will lend to you.

From Listing Distribution52% AirBnb  18% Booking and 8% VRBO globally. 

Disruption in global inventory supply chains has left stores with long lists of unhappy customers waiting months for bikes and accessories.

But for me, it was watching hard earned equity in 2006-7 get taxed (State, Federal, AMT) in half then watching those after-tax proceeds in Fidelity PAS accounts fall nearly in half again in the global recession of 2008-9.

But why does this industry put so much emphasis on networking?

If interest rates continue to fall and the global chase for yield continues asset prices will continue to rise.

Emphasis on scalable.

As if real university administrators had input to class information and a curriculum of subjects with emphasis pointing toward real estate investing, like general business subjects such as law, marketing, applicable economics, finance and accounting?

There was a GLOBAL point, in the GLOBAL answer to this ALL-ENCOMPASSING question, that as said at start relates to O.P. question.