Generally, a solid education in philosophy and ethics reduces the likelihood of immoral behavior, but it doesn't remove it completely. Humans are emotional as well as rational, and strong negative emotions are very seductive. I suspect if we devised an experiment to define the relationship between atrocities and moral understanding, we'd find that knowledge of morals and ethics decreases the willingness to commit acts of inhumanity.
I can think of two reasons why one person would willingly brutalize another. By far the most common type of brutality is where the perpetrator does not empathize with the victim's suffering or their own actions; they do not care for their victim. They do not 'put themself in their victims’ shoes'. And they do not recognize their own behavior as barbaric; they find excuses for it or choose to ignore it. It is possible to know what the ethically right thing to do is, and yet out of selfishness to choose to act unethically. This is not unusual. Many philosophers have struggled with the problem of the gap between knowing and doing the good, as have many religious thinkers. Colleges job is to expose you to new ideas, and most do that. Its job is not really to judge the merits of those ideas. Its REAL first job is to teach you think. Then you can decide if an idea has merit.
By the time kids get to college age they have hopefully already gained the ability to look at all the evidence and form their own opinions, they certainly don't need colleges trying to force them to think or behave a certain way. People surely have a right to be different.
This is a crime of ignorance and emotional immaturity. It is brutal and ugly stupidity.