system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How did the "college standard" happen?

I applied for the exact same job at the exact same steel mill that my dad worked at through the late 60s-2012. He started right out of high school, got a pension, saved a bit of every pay check, and collected social security.

He is retired now and set for life, plays golf and swims everyday.

That same job at the same steel mill now requires a college degree.

How did stuff like this happen? It feels so unfair and just wrong.

I don’t believe people when they say technology is more advanced, because anyone can learn how to do a job with enough repetition.

When my dad retired in 2012 he said there wasn’t much difference in the way he did his job in 2012 compared to 1970, and if a high schooler applied nowadays he could learn just like they taught him back in the 60s.

I understand we have more people now and there’s more competition, but a lot of that’s due to outsourcing jobs. A lot of the steel industry is outsourced, if it were just citizens working jobs it would probably be different.

I just don’t understand how the working force of America let colleges take over and demand degrees for jobs.

Why is that OK? How did it happen?

Can it be reverted?
gpt
They do it because they can.  If you are looking for people to hire, and you want them to be reliable, smart, and not likely to just flake out in 3 weeks, you need an easy way to select for these people.  The easiest demographic is college grads.  Having invested another 4 years of education and making it to the degree show some amount of responsibility, dedication, and basic intelligence.  With people that only graduated high school, you don't really know what you're getting at all.