Except it hasn’t all gone the opposite way. Poverty has declined globally over the last 30 years. I know college is more expensive for American zoomers than it was for boomers but that’s a small effect compared to a billion people climbing above the 2$/day line.

And there’s no corporate conspiracy to keep people uneducated and unskilled. Corporations need highly skilled workers more than ever as economies develop out of agrarianism into manufacturing and then high tech and services.