Since we're on anecdotes, my father was a firefighter who never got a degree at all. Never went into debt. Worked his way up to become Battalion Chief. It's cool the janitor had a passion for classics and wanted to learn about literature. As long as he did that with no expectation that there would be a writing job for him on the other end of that, all's fair in my mind. The guy worked for Columbia, so he probably got free classes as an employee. That being said, these anecdotes aren't sufficient to capture the broad trend which is students going to school to get a degree because they're told that's the thing to do. And for a significant portion of the population, the myth of a degree leading to automatic prosperity persists.

Higher education was never designed for getting a job. Rich families sent kids to be educated. Lately it is a degree factory. But it doesn't mean your father should have been barred if that is how he choose to spend it.