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No, it was not. It was a few decades ago doing work that hasn't substantially changed. If it was naturally declining they wouldn't have put so much work into making it illegal
Sure, as you said above, if you wanted something closer to German-style tracking when it comes to education, I could see the arguments for that. But, that's not saying, "hey, you're 14, go find a job because we're not going to even attempt to educate you anymore" like some here seem to prefer.
But, I think frankly, even in that world, the vast majority of workplaces aren't going to train a bunch of 15-year-olds to do work they can probably find somebody older to do at the same wages, without the extra worry, plus again, even by the standards of 30 years ago, a lot of those jobs aren't economically efficient to do in the US, and again, that's a good thing we're productive enough doing other things we don't need our 14 year olds working and instead, have the economic output that we can educate even the least-wealthy on the off-chance a few of them out of a hundred become something more than a lifetime factory worker like they would in your reality.
Also, a not-so-secret part of why even in a world where having college degrees being mandatory for jobs were illegal, a lot of workplaces would still prefer college-educated people because it shows them you can follow directions and finish something, even if the directions and tasks were possibly not related to the job.
And an even-less-secret part of that is that "a lot" is not nearly enough for degreeless people to worry about finding a job, which we see in today's world, in industries where degree requirements are optional, not illegal. At least I never worried about finding a job so far.
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