>When I went to college you actually had to pass entrance exams and people avoided technical colleges like plague if they actually weren't interested in them - this is still true for top colleges in EU - but the trend of pushing college as a ticket to a comfy office job obviously doesn't result in a bunch of highly skilled professionals (reduced standards to allow greater number of graduates) and gives you a bunch of people who have high expectations and no practical skills - so you get angry kids on the streets.

I see where you're coming from, but don't share the moral condemnation.

Why shouldn't they be angry?

Wanting to be merely decent/half-good at a job and make a living is fine by me -- and it's the way it has worked before (which is why the expected it to hold for them too).

If only the top deserved jobs, then either we'd need the whole population to have top skills (not really doable even if possible), or just give jobs to a 10% or so.

Besides, it's not most jobs are for anything really useful in the grand scheme of things. If you leave out some vital services, most of it is empty bureaucracy, redundant services, etc.