I think I agree with you more than it might seem. Most of the problem of what is being sold to older kids lies at the feet of their educators; their parents not instilling the subtleties of the situation, extraordinary bloat in admin departments, lack of recursion in post sec(do these kids actually get jobs paying in their educated field? Do colleges even care?)
I think partly it's the blind spot of career educators who also see their path as the recommended one--people that haven't worked in the competitive private sector and seen the ruthlessness of it.
Maybe that's my myopia showing.
I think more education in high school should be built on an apprenticeship model--do you see the value and challenges of this field? Does the work feel right for you?
We dispense all this info in a second order attempt to build expertise, and assume the groundwork will build itself. It's backwards.
Further to this, the universities are ripe for restructuring. The information is widely available and could be easily distributed at low cost, It's the accreditation end that's still complicated.