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Times Newer Roman is a Font Designed To Make Your Essays Look Longer (theverge.com)
Chaim Gartenberg, writing for The Verge: Times Newer Roman, a font from internet marketing firm MSCHF (which you may remember from the Tabagotchi Chrome extension). Times Newer Roman looks a lot like the go-to academic font, but each character is subtly altered to be 5 to 10 percent wider, making your essays look longer without having to actually make them longer. According to Times Newer Roman's website, a 15-page, single-spaced document in 12 point type only requires 5,833 words, compared to 6,680 for the standard Times New Roman. (That's 847 words you don't need to write, which is more than twice the length of this post!)
Making your paper longer is stupid anyway. The discovery of the Double Helix was published in a two-page article. There are journals now with maximum length limits and restrictions on how many figures and tables you can include, so either stfu and say something useful or just stfu.
Adam Smith wrote a five-paragraph essay in fifty pages.
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I'm not sure it's educators who really want to grade papers that way. I taught an intro-level college class and assigned a paper as a class project. I told the students that I was grading on content and described those expectations. I didn't assign a page limit and told them they needed to cover their topic thoroughly without adding fluff. Students didn't like the expectation of a brief but thorough paper and I received a lot of push back. Students would say things like "I understand, but how long does it really need to be?", indicating they wanted a page or word length guideline. I assume they got this expectation in high school. I explained that outside of academia, people want thorough but brief reports and I was preparing them for the real world. They didn't want to accept my explanation. I'm not sure it's educators who want these limits. I think students want them so they know the minimum amount of work they have to do.
I have a dual degree in Business and Engineering. I was always fascinated by the concept that Business Management assignments had a minimum word count, and engineering assignments had a maximum.
It kind of fundamentally explains the differences between:
Management: Bullshit until the bull can shit no more.
STEM: If you can't explain it in a 1 liner then you haven't found the best solution.