Gee Carl, you got your Extra when I was in the 3rd grade, and you were first licensed 5 years before I was born.
Congrats. That means you're older than I am. If I remember right, didn't you work for National Radio back in the day?
Yep, 1963-69 straight out of the USN for 4 years fully trained as an ET which was huge benefit back then. I walked in, answered some questions and got hired. Didnt need to spend weeks learning how to use test equipment either.
When I left National I was already in R&D doing design work; degrees werent needed back then just to get in the door.
Dumbed down? Hardly. One in three freshmen couldn't handle the workload and dropped out completely. 2 of 3 people declaring an EE major didn't survive sophomore year. What drove most people out of the EE program was Calculus 3 and EM Fields 1. Getting people to thoroughly understand Maxwell's Equations, while learning the calculus needed to do so simultaneously was more than most people could handle.
That is a huge parallel to those unable to get from 5 wpm to 13....I earned the ARRL 30 wpm certificate a few months after passing the General.
The only reason I earned degrees decades later was to position myself for an excellent pension and a Sr Engr job at a major defense contractor leading a group on part of the F-35 avionics package....at 300 GHz and beyond. I took courses at UMass, MIT, BU, and elsewhere which benefited the job at the time over the years.
And who said anything about mentioning an Amateur Radio license on a resume? I haven't seen anyone care about that on a resume in 30 years.
It comes up on various forums and OTA even these days. I mention it as a warning to others to be careful, youre not the only one reading this.
Regarding well-educated immigrants? They are no better educated than American students. In fact, many of them studied here in the U.S. But companies hire them on H-1B visas because they work cheap, and are useful to suppress salary levels among engineers. You just can't hire them if you're a defense contractor, because most H-1B visa holders are unable to qualify for the security clearance requirements.
That may be your opinion including a wide range of employment in Industrial Ohio and elsewhere not requiring a top level education.
Yes, many earned their degrees in the US and the Greater Boston area was loaded with them which also has its share of top schools and very high tech companies, not just electronics.
I lived and worked in the defense industry for several decades (had a TS Crypto clearance since the USN/USNR) in this area and MANY were hired and well qualified as EE's ready to work from day one. Others less qualified bought 7-eleven's, motels, and found other jobs that eventually paid far more than an EE

One I remember well was from Pakistan and retired as a multi-millionaire.
In NYC and LA they drive cabs.

Not all EE (and other disciplines) schools are equal. When my middle son was going for his MSEE at the USAF AFIT at Wright Patterson he as a brand new 2d Lt tutored others as high as Captain. AFIT is a top rated school and dimbulbs arent given free passes as in some of the schools around the country.
Carl