Yes, this has always been a danger.
America is, surprisingly to those who do not know it well, a highly anti-intellectual society.
For all its achievements in the arts and science in the last century, intellectuals are not generally admired. Intellectuals are never heroes the way business-success stories are.
In fact, American education has undergone a horribly destructive revolution over the last half century or so, whereby almost anyone, regardless of ability or interest, can attend some form of college or university and get some kind of diploma. All for a good price, provided either by choking loans or by military service (the U.S.'s biggest inducement for joining up).
The other route is athletic scholarships, a shameful system that essentially "pays" athletic young men with tuition instead of money despite their lack academic interest or ability. Many of these young men play a year or two and never graduate. Others are kept playing by passing them despite their poor academic performance, thus continuously lowering grade standards.
For many of the second-rate colleges, and some of the first-rate ones, athletic teams are gigantic money-raising schemes, bringing former graduates back again and again to be heavily solicited for donations. The whole nasty system is made possible by young men who play for tuition rather than pay.
For these and other reasons, many of these degrees are meaningless, only granting to a family the right to claim their "kid is in college." Virtual illiterates are graduated from some institutions and from others people with the learning of high school fifty years ago have diplomas.
The actual class system - very powerful in America but not bragged about - is maintained quietly by having tests like the SAT or ACT to get into quality universities, tests which cannot be passed by people with the poor education supplied in many parts of the public school system.
There are many aspects to the anti-intellectual attitudes, including the dumbing-down of public broadcasting, which now has reached the level of certified silliness.
Hillary understands this, as the visceral almost psychopathic politician she is, and has made sure the accusation "she thinks her shit don't stink" is not applied to her.
