Somewhere along the line, liberals got it in their head that a college degree was the key to success and that we could eliminate social ills through education. So they expanded colleges at an unprecedented rate and in doing so did two things: created a jobs service for PhDs that would otherwise be unemployable in the real world and devalued the Bachelor's degree to the point that it represents what a high school diploma did 50 years ago.
The fact that liberals fail to see is that every society must have its doctors and its janitors, must have its telephone sales reps and its lawyers. If you educate everyone equally, you will merely end up with a society that has degreed janitors.
The Swiss "get it."
Eliminate the Department of Education.
Well, you can eliminate social ills through education...it's just that the kind of education required has nothing to do with college. ;)