Is specifying a minimum word count beneficial for academic writing?
As we all know, during our higher education careers it is inevitable to be assigned 
  essays or academic papers that require a minimum word-count. 


I do not agree with your premise here. For my undergraduate and graduate students I rarely include a minimum word count. I do include a maximum word count (which students often want extended) for the reason you wrote: Encourage students to write concisely.

Minimum word counts do promote the things we want to avoid. Writing the same information with fewer words give greater power to the writing so encouraging students to do the opposite does not really do what I want to do.

That said, I do find that I have to be VERY clear with my students that writing too little can cause them to fail. I explain that when it comes to word count, there is a maximum, say 3,000 words, but no minimum. If they can show they understand everything they should understand in 500 words, great! However, unless they are an exceptional writer, they should expect to fail if they submit too little.