There are not enough "higher quality manufacturing / blue collar jobs." The US has embraced an economic model of outsourcing manufacturing and shifting to an economy based around intellectual property, finance, and other knowledge work. What's left is low-skill, low-pay service jobs, where outsourcing is not possible, but where technology is instead the threat.

And knowledge jobs are jobs for smart people. Most people are not smart enough to do those jobs and no amount of money spent on education (the US spends more than almost every other western country, at every level) can change that.