I'm not sure why anyone would be surprised that college credentialing has turned into a farcical arms race that confers little genuine benefit to society. That's the inevitable result of competition.

As for the "War on Stupid," I'd say that that has been a reciprocal effort (anti-intellectualism may never have been higher in the US than right now), but the economic impacts of not having higher IQ has nothing to do with IQ warfare and everything to do with class warfare.