Are We Really Sure That Our Successful Students Are Really Successful?

I was reading a post by Donte Rome where he says:

' I've been in college for about 3 years now and it amazes me how i can pass classes without ever having to buy the books for them. I can just google any information i need and the informations is just as accurate.'

This made me wonder, Are our successful students really successful? If our students can make it through our classes by using a search engine are we really measuring what we should be measuring? What do you think?