Be fair, albaby. I just checked. A full 96% of Congress have college degrees. It's not just Dems.

My contention is that off-shoring was/is causing a drain on "good middle class jobs", and now automation is draining more.** How many legal secretaries were required to run an office 30 years ago versus now? I would be surprised if those staffing requirement weren't cut in half by automation (computers, databases, etc...they enable one person to do the work of ten).

The jobs that can be automated, are being automated. And those are mostly muscle jobs and clerical, which is a huge part of the middle class. Skilled trades remain, service industry remains, and (for now) technical/specialists remain (e.g. lawyers, engineers, doctors, accountants, etc). Frankly, a lot of those specialists may be obsolete in another 50 years (your favorite YouTube lawyer did a segment on AI lawyering...it isn't there yet, but may be in the future). Which will leave skilled trades, and service.

But for now, looking only at earning potential, there is substantially more potential with a college degree. Rolled into that would be the "non-essential" screening you mentioned, but also the reality that college does enable one to do specialized/technical jobs that otherwise would be unrealistic to expect.

ssa.gov - Education earnings

**And I recall reading that there is some on-shoring now, but into automated factories. So even foreign labor is too expensive now.