Close the Achievement Gap in a Service Economy?!

As this article from today's New York Times indicates, getting a college degree in no way assures one a good paying job that requires a college degree (unless you are into computers or engineering or want to be a teacher -- one very well paid to young white or foreign men and the other very poorly paid with low status filled mostly by white middle class women)

Some interesting points made in the article:
1. It's who you know: “I have friends with the same degree as me, from a worse school, but because of who they knew or when they happened to graduate, they’re in much better jobs,” 
2. Shit rolls downhill when there is structural inequality: the number of these workers employed in food service, restaurants and bars had risen 17 percent in 2009 from 2008, though the sample size was small. There were similar or bigger employment increases at gas stations and fuel dealers, food and alcohol stores, and taxi and limousine services.  This may be a waste of a college degree, but it also displaces the less-educated workers who would normally take these jobs. 
3. EVERYONE go to college?  merely makes the college degree less valuable: Many graduates will probably take on more student debt. More than 60 percent of those who graduated in the last five years say they will need more formal education to be successful.