Winter in Bloom
It is quite clear that empire's collapse. I give it a 50:50 chance that the US Dollar goes to 0 in my lifetime - that is to say, the next 70 years. All empires fail eventually. As a historian once said to a politician, "My dear, we have already established concensus on the matter, now we are just negotiating the time scale".
Even in the 70's the prospect of higher education was crowded with candidates for the same job. So much so many of us Boomers sought alternative routes, filling opportunities our BAs and BSes minimally qualified us, but where there were fewer people skilled in those allied fields. People began to realize a Masters or PHD in Aeronautic Engineering meant being over qualified for any job. Employers wanted to groom their candidates to their ways with internal training, so they could pay them less as an undergrad.
By the 80's a higher degree meant you filled an administrative role rather than the very thing one became educated for doing, and wanted to pursue. If one didn't enter such admin role, the employer, and I mean any employer, simply wouldn't hire you FOR ANYTHING. One couldn't even work in a mail room. At least that was my experience. So the market was very tight through those years for high education slots within a company.
Many went to work for the government as the expansion of bureaus needed very skilled people. So the whole system of advancement by educational attainment was a fairy tale for all but the highest GPAs. People like Steve Jobs, dropped out and started their own businesses. That gave many people hope through the 90's with Silicon Valley scooping up the brightest of those who could learn their way through computers and networking at a visceral level. The same for the pharmaceutical industry.
The rest of us ended up in the service industry, the largest employer out there at widely varying capacities and potentials for advancement. This last recession taught workers that no job was secure, as massive layoffs and downsizing harshly taught. People became disaffected about their employers, hopping from one job to the next to seek the highest pay or benefits without any loyalty at all to any employer.
So really the problem of education and lack of excitement in the workforce was the result of unsolved problems in the workplace being kicked down the stairs from one decade to the next. The folks down at the bottom of the payscale just got the worst of all these poor decisions by employers who no longer cared if the employer succeed or not.