It boils down to a couple of things, one, the takeover of Academe by draft-dodging Leftists, but let's put that one aside for now.
Look at the numbers. When the Boomers reached college age, colleges and universities would have been swamped with the NORMAL flow of new applicants; no surprise there. But the VIetnam war dramatically increased the percentage of male HS grads who sought to go to college in order to delay or avoid military service. The schools simply exploded with these higher numbers of students. New buildings popped up, buildings were re-purposed into classrooms, etc., etc.
Also, prior to the late 60's "good" colleges took pride in their academic attrition rates. It was actually a mark of pride to say that only some percentage (half or less) of those who first enrolled would graduate. At Harvard the claim was 2/3 would crap out before graduation day. But Vietnam changed all that. The professors and teachers were horrified at the thought that they might give a student a failing grade, causing him to be expelled, drafted, then KILLED IN VIETNAM! Horrors! So academic attrition reduced from, say 50% to something like 15%. Grading became much looser, and there were numerous ways to prevent bad grades from showing up on your transcripts.
But then the Boom petered out, and the colleges were confronted with classrooms and dorms that needed filling. Standards were lowered. Affirmative Action expanded under various rubrics. Bullshit courses and bullshit majors were added, to accommodate the tens of thousands of students who were not - in the vernacular of the time - "college material."
Traditionally, college was intended to educate the top 25% of HS grads, and let's face it: college prepares the leaders of tomorrow, 60% of HS grads cannot be "leaders." It is bullshit.
So it is no wonder that hundreds of thousands of college degrees are held by people who had no business going to college in the first place. OF COURSE their major was some bullshit subject that no sane employer would value, and OF COURSE they would not manifest great intelligence or perseverence when they hit the job market.
The pity is that most of these fukkers accumulated huge debts in the pursuit of these nearly-worthless sheepskins, and now are lucky to find a job that will support them, let alone pay back those loans in a reasonable time.
When I was growing up the mention of a young person obtaining a college degree was an occasion of joy and admiration. Employers valued ANY degree, because it was presumed that it took intelligence and hard work to get that degree. After Vietnam, not so much.
