@ChristineGuinn
Given discussion I heard from college/university students preferring to take "birdie" courses, I would wager that "college-educated" is not anywhere near a distinction of competency as you pretend. Plenty of people who sit through classes, cram as little or as much as they need for for the exams, and not actually learn anything in the end.
I have similar sentiments with the expression "native speaker". It indicates you're likely to speak the language very well, but that's easily as a result of instinct or experience alone, not actual knowledge; I personally found that being a "native speaker" means fairly little to your ability to critically examine the use of language. You would be just one example of it.
As a reference that clearly enunciates the differences between the examples I pointed out:
[ul]"A teacher came by to pick us up" should be used preferentially if the act of the teacher coming by was relatively insignificant on their part; to say "My teacher had to come pick me up" makes it more evident that this was an act the teacher was forced into, and gives a little more of a hint that there was some communication between the teacher and young Fuutarou where this arrangement was decided.[/ul]
[ul]Similarly, "We passed the time in a spare room" is a nonchalant presentation of events, and gives the impression there was nothing urgent about to come up. "I waited in a spare room" is a more neutral phrasing, but works with the previous sentence to indicate that this was likely the result of an order from the teacher Fuutarou communicated with.[/ul]
[ul]Lastly, "The teacher gave us a mouthful back then" has a less intense word choice compared to "My homeroom teacher ended up chewing the hell out of me", so it completely skews the reader's idea on how much trouble Fuutarou ended up in. Because of #dropout's previous sentences choices, it also makes it more ambiguous if the teacher "gave them a mouthful" specifically over Fuutarou ditching his group and itinerary, rather than something else; to assume so would still be reasonable, but it leaves open other, less relevant, possibilities for the scolding (such as for playing cards rather than just sitting and waiting until the teacher arrived). 5toubun sc/a/ns, because it was already set up earlier by their sentences choices that indicate each party was forced into their actions, forms a stronger connection between the teacher's scolding and Fuutarou's initial transgression, which is what makes it the stronger presentation. And #dropout using "gave us" rather than "gave me" was just a plain mistake, though they seem to have fixed that since.[/ul]
Keep in mind that this is only one example from one page and, even leaving aside the just-plain-wrong translations (before they were fixed at least), there were a few other parts where I got the sense that the wording gave an impression that was different to what the original JP meant. This kind of stuff is insidious because, especially in a text-light medium like manga, it's the subtlest differences that's the hardest to pinpoint explicitly that can warp your understanding of the characters and events until the point a work of art loses coherence.
I know enough Japanese to read the raw, and I assume a couple other people do too. I still come here to read the translations, partially because of the end-credit memes (before the recent sour note), but more importantly because reading other peoples' translations help corroborate and refine my own understanding of what I read. If the translation I read is superior to what I would have done, great - I got a learning experience. If the translation is inferior though, the least I could do is call them out on it so other people will know what they're missing and/or, especially in this case, how much of an asshole #dropout as a whole is being.