While I enjoy watching this Gundam enough, I'm with MFauli about the school situation (though not necessarily about the characters per se).

Episode 0 was quite grounded and serious.

The rest of the series has the serious nature of GUND, corporate sabotage etc in the background while it places the school life in the foreground. It doesn't seem to be a traditional school, but instead is more of a sandbox for IRL+twists where kids get to be presidents, have their own house teams, dual each other for stakes and other shit like that with their parents' backings - all because a guy called The Writers Delling decided that he liked things that way.

It gives the series a light hearted nature which can be enjoyable, but at the same time detracts from the gravity and realism.

It really comes down to the dualing mechanic of the school I think. You have corporations happy to assassinate people or pass regulations unfairly, but Ariel will just dual her way out of it, all because Delling decided that dualing for his daughter and rewards would be a cool concept.