I'm especially curious as to whether this could be just a rediscovery by the younger generation of what baby boomers lived as a matter of course……everyone's starting point was manual labor and you aspired to white collar. If your brake pads wore thin, you swung by Western Tire on the way home, bought the pads and replaced then in between getting the homework done. It was just part of life.

College was a culling out of those who could also master the more abstract and wanted to move your life in that direction. Perhaps the author is attesting to the fact that the horse still needs to come before the cart and just “entitling” everyone to a desk job doesn't necessarily make sense.