“Anyone can be successful in college, and no one should be condemned to declasse jobs like electrician, plumber, machinist, etc.”
Anyone - yes. Everyone - no.
Most of those blue collar jobs you seem to look down on will net more money in their lifetime that the average college person.
Spending your whole adult working life pulling wire or running a small business would be stultifying to anyone with a creative mind.
A lot of us "white collar" types did have blue collar jobs when we were in school. We saw the types of people they were, nice hard working but for the most part lacking much imagination.....
I was speaking ironically.