I think part of the issue here is that back in the day with less automation, you could prove yourself useful merely with the skills that come along with having

I think part of the issue here is that back in the day with less automation, you could prove yourself useful merely with the skills that come along with having a pulse and a functioning brain. Your utility one just doing the unskilled parts of your job would let you keep a job long enough to learn the hard skills to really be useful within a few months to a year. Automation of all these menial tasks has gotten so good that you no longer have low hanging fruit to justify employment that the level of skill a recent college grad has coming out of school. Take some of the skills cited like statistics. Most people in the workforce have atrocious practical stats skills, but enough to get by. For recent grads, it's abysmal to non-existent. A few years ago to back in the day, you wouldn't have been expected to apply such skills on day one. You'd have enough time to realize your skill gap and address it. Not anymore. Anyone thinking about university is best served by choosing schools like University of Waterloo, where there is a strong culture of having kids do real work during the summer months at real companies (instead of summer school). Any school where kids are doing summer school or goofing around all summer are going to be left behind.