It's not hard to see what happened and who they might have been taking advice from. When I was college age, the advice I heard from my father was to get a degree. My dad didn't have one, but the guy in charge at his job did- in Physical Education. They worked in a manufacturing plant.
While I was in school, what I heard most often is that most people do not end up working in the field of their degree. So, for a long time the only point was to get the diploma itself. The training behind it was really immaterial, and that was true- for that time.
The problem isn't that everyone turned stupid, it's that the world changed and they didn't quite notice.
I agree, and things are still changing. The "check in the box" for a degree is still worth something, although it may not be worth what was paid. My friend up the street has a daughter in college; her grades aren't that good, and she's taking psychology or sociology or something like that.
Should she continue, my friend asked. My advice was that, with a year to go, she should stick it out if her grades are good enough to graduate. It's only a little more debt than if she dropped out after 3 years, and she'll have that credential. My friend left college after 3 years to get married, and still doesn't have a degree 20 years later. She wishes she did.
The daughter is very smart, just not very mature or motivated, at 21.