I'm not entirely victim blaming, but the idea of "go to college and you'll be fine no matter what" hasn't been true for 20 years.  People using that myth to justify complaining that they can't find a job or they are underemployed with a degree from a middling university in a silly major.  Some of that definitely falls to parents for buying into it, but it wasn't a prevailing theme even recently.

I graduated HS in 2003 and even then my parents and my friends parents were very much of the mentality of "we'll help you with school, but make sure its a degree with value."  Hell, I was a Psych major (eventually double major) and I had to work out what I planned to do with it for my dad and my grandfather (one for college help, the other for avoiding stern lectures about my future).   I got into a good school so I was fortunate, but my neighbor who was a year younger ended up going to CC for 2 years and transferring to Marquette (instead of going 4 years at a lower level school), not in small part to discussions his father and my father had.

I'm firmly a millennial and I have siblings aged across the next decade into the zoomers, so I have a broad scope of viewpoints and experiences of the age range.  I don't disagree with some of the points, what I do disagree with is supposedly smart people (both parents and children) who employed little to no critical thinking and now perpetually complain about the system.  For everyone first generation college grad with a ton of debt who is underemployed (who has truly been screwed and I feel for) you have another one or two 20 somethings who graduated with a 3.0 from a mid level university with a marketing degree and expect a very well paying job because they have a degree.
 
Also, for your statement about middle class income, I think people havent scaled what they think of as middle class.  I saw median income for middle class nationally was roughly $91K.  I know 3 different friends/family who make within $10K of that number who are a single earner household with 1-2 kids.  They don't live in Lincoln Park or Brookfield or Highland Park (they are in Chicago, MKE, and Dallas burbs respectively) but they have no issue with it.  I would cede that its tougher with current interest rates, but 2 of them bought in the 4% range (the other still rents a 3BR apartment).  I feel like people making the "middle class can't do XYZ" argument still view middle class as $60-70K.

!10% inflation for 10+ years with stagnant wages from the 70s until the 90s. You are being reductive, but I don't think it's on purpose. It's worth reading about imo.

People in the US are currently whining about 8% inflation for 1 year.

Edit: I'm not trying to say today is better or worse than the 70s because I don't think that argument is valuable to have. I'm just trying to say that you shouldn't discount dgies experience when he was fresh out of college. They were not easy times.

He's 100x the doctor you are.