I've been to college and university and I can honestly say that the internet has been pretty integral to my studies and by this, I do not mean copying all my answers from wikipedia. Using the internet, you can access a larger supply of books, journals and other sources of research that would otherwise be very difficult to find. There was also another great feature called "Blackboard" which allowed lecturers to upload class notes and articles of interest. This was great for catching up when you missed a lesson or wanting to refresh what you learned.

People definitely abuse it though. As I mentioned, people do copy straight from wikipedia or they find already written papers and so they could sail through education with pretty much little effort so in this sense, it could be helping to dumb people down.