This obsession with all kids getting a degree was started off by Blair, was it not?
Whilst I wouldn't want to crush kids' life expectations in any way, the idea that everyone can be really clever means you have no one to sweep the streets, serve you in McDonalds, build your house, clean public toilets, fix your boiler...the list goes on. It's social engineering at its most gormless.
Not sure if it was at the same time that Polytechnics got rebranded as Universities to give them better street cred when applying for jobs but all that happened is that simply having a degree isn't good enough, it has to be from the right university so nothing really changed.
I think it was supposed to be aspirational opening universities up to the masses and help break down social barriers etc etc but all we have now are a load of kids in their early 20's coming out of university with a 60K debt to show for their degree in crisp pack designs or some such useless load of shit.
The problem is they then expect to walk into their 1st job earning 50K and it must be a shock to realise they aren't really qualified to do anything so end up in Maccy D's flipping burgers on minimum wage just like they would have been doing before but without the debt.
Universities should be for those who are at the top educationally, I always used to think the top 10% went and that's probably about right.
As you point out we still need people to do all the other jobs however you don't need a degree to do most of them in reality though industry is also partly to blame here.
I used to know a guy who worked in a manufacturing industry and they had laboratory technicians to test stuff, he started with O Level Chemistry but said you didn't really even need that however 5 years down the line they wouldn't recruit anyone who didn't have A level Chemistry, another 5 years and you needed a degree.
Problem there is that all the new graduates coming in complained about not earning enough and they could see the supervisor and management jobs were dead mans shoes so didn't stick around for too long.
My mate's brother was a fireman and you perhaps needed a few o levels but again now they want graduates, the fire brigade used to be good for ex military personnel as there is a discipline element and you need to be a bit resourceful and able to think on your feet plus be prepared to get stuck in etc, the historical recruiting ground has disappeared.
The other point is that we need plumbers and electricians etc, people with practical skills not qualifications in the history of dance, apprenticeships and vocational training have been looked down on for the last 30 or 40 years but I think they are now coming back into fashion, hopefully.