There is some of that. You don't need a college degree to be -for example- an admin (assistant), but college grads may be given priority because they have shown they can complete a degree program (which is not trivial). Not a necessary qualification for the job, but why wouldn't you choose someone who has demonstrated "more"? 1poorkid doesn't yet have her degree, but she has a job dealing with state government rules and completing various paperwork. So those jobs are out there, and in her case she got it without a degree.

My point was that with the blue collar jobs diminishing, you need at least a four-year degree (often a grad degree) to get anything other than a food-service job. Can't get your job (lawyer) without a degree. My former profession required technical knowledge that could be acquired independently, but would more reasonably come from formal education**.

And even then, a lot of those jobs are starting to travel overseas. There are highly-educated populations that, through remote working, can do technical jobs just as well as Americans, and do it cheaper because they are in India (for example). The US used to have an education advantage, but that's not assured anymore. My former employer had design centers in India, Romania, Norway, and probably some others.

Construction, trades that come to your house (e.g. plumber), service jobs, can never be off-shored. But the muscle jobs have been, and continue to be, moving away. We only need so many skilled trades, like plumbers. All that's left after that is brain jobs. At least for a while, until remote working takes those also. And brain jobs usually require some specialized education.

**And I still had to learn my job because they don't teach "failure analysis" in school. They give you the tools, but you have to figure out how to apply them to that specific idiosyncratic job.