There is a big difference in going to a gadol for a bracha and thinking a nivra is a borei or is mehave the olam. And nobody davens to their gadol. I don’t have nice things to say about the “tzedakah segula” advertisements, but they don’t claim to be in charge instead of Hashem. But you are right in that the community has gotten away from Hashem with this focus on segulos and away from Hashem.
college- My Rebbe allowed it, so my views on this are different than most of the real yeshivish posters. The letter from Rav Elchonon Wasserman HY”D clearly says college is muttar for panassah. Touro and Lander are parnassah-focused and don’t claim to have an ideology or to bear the banner of Modern Orthodoxy. Torah V’Daas used to mean Torah and secular subjects back when it first opened. I agree with you that YU is better than a goyishe college.