> That's because the educated don't want to just "do" , they want to be successful at it.

I've actually observed the opposite. For a non-insignificant number of people, it seems like their university degree is seen primarily as a piece of paper that allows them to demand a high wage while actively avoiding mental or physical exertion.

To be fair, a lot of folks get degrees in part to avoid the sorts of jobs that require physical exertion, which have traditionally been low-skill jobs. I'm not so sure it is true much anymore, considering that a business degree often gets your a retail management job. A fair amount of those store managers unload the truck along with others.

Aside from MBAs (and even of those, the more prestigious among them) after undergraduate $some_profession, when has 'a business degree' ever led to much significantly better than 'a retail management job' on average?

The only problem if there is one IMO is that everyone is so encouraged/socially pressured into university, that even in the absence of any intellectual curiosity or merit in a particular field they must go. So of course certain programmes or universities get saddled with poor 'retail management' (or worse!) metrics.

There is a stigma against not pursuing undergraduate study (ever increasingly far down the socio-economic ladder) and also against having working to lower-middle class jobs with a degree! We can't have it both ways! If so many people should be post-nominally lettered, then naturally so many jobs should be staffed by graduates.

> a piece of paper that allows them to demand a high wage while actively avoiding mental or physical exertion

I’d argue that the piece of paper is more for a semi-secure livable wage than a high wage, with or without physical exertion. From my anecdotal subgroup, I’ve yet to meet a person who expects (let alone: hopes for) high wages (above $25/hr) as a result of their degree.

I've yet to meet someone with a degree who expects 'wages' or measures their earnings per hour!

Ooooh yeah. After being in national level sports teams, high-performing bands, I took up swing dancing as a hobby. I was garbage at it. After 5 years I'm approximately mediocre at best. Took me a very long time to come to terms with being not at all talented at something. But it's been a wonderful journey of meeting people, humility and learning how to learn something totally new again. I doubt I'll ever be great, but I have no plans on stopping (global pandemic aside).

There are also now a wide range of surrogate activities for doing that come with way less risk of failure than doing: planning the doing, managing the doing, strategizing about doing, ...

Not everyone likes taking risks and dealing with failures (and there will always be some - even if it us just on the way to success).

Those who do are in the top 1% by default, the vast majority don't get that far.

But again people want to be in the 1% of income, wealth and social status, not in the 1% of "trying".