Met a couple of these guys in my career in tech. Two were DevOps engineers who had no college but made themselves indispensable. One was a guy who had only a smattering of Java but became a really useful Salesforce platform developer. Our VP of Sales had him on speed dial and he had a LOT of consulting clients on the side. All of these people were men, and I'm pretty sure they all earned over six figures.

I've met a larger number of people who have masters degrees, sometimes PhDs, and numerous certificates in project management, etc. Their jobs in education, healthcare administration, government, and utilities require these credentials for advancement or even for entry-level posts. Most of them have pay that is quite low. Some of them (the educators) are even at the poverty line in the Bay Area, where I live. Most of them are women.

I often read that men are "ending" because of their failure to attain college and postgraduate degrees in our new economy at the same rate that women do. At the same time, I read that our universities are failing to provide real skills valued in industry.

To what extent are these trends linked?