No URL shorteners , please . <| sep |> and first the crazies went wild with nonsensical speculation <| sep |> It ' s always been like that though . There have always been blue collar jobs that could compete very well with white collar jobs . The primary difference being that you break your body for blue collar work and your earning potential isn ' t as great . The real issue is that teens aren ' t really exposed to that truth of the world and their potential career fields . So many of us left college expecting huge sums of money but the reality is that income is a bell curve and the vast majority of people will never earn the top 510 % of salaries . That said , education is the greatest equalizer we have as a society . I went to a second tier state school because it was cheap and my professional peers are all Ivy . I jumped from lower middle class to upper middle class thanks in part to my education . It does happen .