First of all the reason people are staying home thanks to pandemic unemployment is due to the fact that they were being paid so poorly before with no hope of career advancement that the meager 600$ a week was a leg up. Now that people have gotten a taste of what it feels like to not be constantly treading water, they are not going back to those low paying jobs. This is something the government should have gotten ahead of years ago in the sense of raising minimum wages and adding benefits but have constantly been blocked by anti-government forces. The minimum wage should be close to 23$ today yet we can't even have a discussion on 15$.
Luckily the people are starting to wake up. While government aid has ended in many states people are still not going back to work. There are numerous strikes that are beginning right now or are about to begin and I think this will continue for the foreseeable future. All of this is a response to people who think like you and have been at the reigns for decades.
>We let pretty much everyone in that wants to go and will give them money to do so...that is a terrible way to run the system.
You mean give them loans that are not dischargeable in bankruptcy very different from Europe. Furthermore you point on letting everyone in is 100% false. Are you an American? Its starting to sound like you are not. For example my alma mater which is a third tier technical school has only a ~50% admission rate. Many colleges are less than that. Also consider that only ~30% (going on 40% thanks to the pandemic) of Americans have a Bachelors degree or higher. This system is restricted by who can afford to go or who is willing to bear the burden of years of loans.
Just because people go to college doesn't mean they get degrees...but they certainly rack up the debt. Apply to enough colleges and you will get into one...I guarantee it. My alma mater, a state school had an 82% acceptance rate in 2020. Another local one...Portland State University had a 95% acceptance rate...95%!!!
Governments in other countries are more involved in colleges...and they also restrict who gets in. We let pretty much everyone in that wants to go and will give them money to do so...that is a terrible way to run the system.