My daughter-in-law is the corporate vice president of the cosmetics department at a major US retailer. She makes big bucks. There are a lot of senior positions in retail where a person quietly moves their way up and one day they are an executive.
Sorry, the correct answer is: President of the United States!
Around four years ago, I had to fly in late to an airport without a car reservation. Small airport, maybe thirty flights a day. One car rental place still open. The young lady was friendly and helpful. We got into small talk as she wrapped up the episode. She was the manager of the car rental place, and had just graduated from the local university. I assumed an associates degree....I was wrong, a bachelor’s degree.
I stood there. Twenty years ago...at almost every car rental shop in the US....the local manager was usually an older guy, and he had a high-school education....that was it. We have taken a $28,000 job as a car rental manager which usually required minimum education and now puffed it up enough that university graduates are the manager. Unique skills? No.
The problem is that we are producing so many of these degree people....that they end up with simple task jobs with limited future progression. It doesn’t make much sense.
There was a time (up until WW II) where you went to college for a real degree....engineering, science, or medicine. Even high school teachers used to be folks with one or two years of some teacher-college (I had several of these people as I went to school in the 1960s/1970s) We’ve cheapen the educational process to such a degree that it’s mostly fake.