Technical Workers are Knowledge Workers

More High School students need knowledge this fact to lead them to quicker employment and return on your educational investment. You would think if our country's leaders and career counslers promoted this more than the 4 year degree, it would lead to a quicker recovery of the bad unemployment numbers, there for the economy. (especially if they emphasize the need for greater problem solving training during that two years.)

Yes, but promoting this career path hurts the college-banking complex, as they are not generating as much money through the generation of student loans, which cannot be dismissed through bankruptcy, so they are 'guaranteed investments' to the banks.

Also, we are dealing with bad cases of 'degree inflation' already due to the effects that the college-banking complex has had on our economy and society already. There are already more BS-degree holders fighting for the AS-degree level jobs (since there are not enough BS-degree jobs to go around, after all the H1 visas bringing in low-wage immigrants to fill the 'engineering shortage') then there are AS-degree level jobs available, so anyone with less than a BS degree is not even considered.

There's a similar effect in the US military, especially the Army, when dealing with officers. Every Lieutenant who wishes to advance to Captain has to go through 'Jump School' (Airborne training) simply because each year, there are more Airborne graduates than there are open Captain slots to promote into. And to progress even further, they have to 'appeal' to their CO, who will be providing the recommendations for promotion, which plays heavily on who advances and who doesn't, since at every tier, there are MANY more candidates than positions.

Officers who wish to be promoted do their best to emulate their superior, politicking to get a house in the same neighborhood (so they have more 'off duty contact,' which brings them more to the forefront when thinking about who 'deserves' a promotion), joining the same clubs and organizations as their commander (for the same reason, more face time, and to make themselves seem like a 'mini-me' to their commander), even forcing their family to conform and emulate the commander's family (to increase the 'mini-me' sensation). And when they or their commander rotates to a new assignment, the process repeats, the officer changing everything to become a mirror of their new boss.

Does the military benefit from having all the officers being promoted be nothing but vapid, mercurial 'yes-men?' No, in fact that is counter to having an efficient, 'productive' military. Do we as a society benefit from the degree inflation, where soon you will need a BS degree and $1,000,000 in student loan debt to be able to apply for a job that will pay $100,000 (pre-tax) over the course of your lifetime? No, that's a recipe for complete disaster. But as long as the colleges keep churning out more degreed graduates than there are jobs to employ, we're heading in that direction. Even my old High School AND its chief rival have changed from being Technical High Schools (which taught trades) to College Prep Schools (which only teach what is needed to get into college, on the assumption that every graduate will be pursuing a 2-4 year degree).