There is a great deal to be criticized in that. For the most part, it's just dead wrong.
Forty years earlier, Grandma was the first in the family to finish high school. Twenty years ago, Dad was the first to go to college.
WTF? Are you speaking from a time warp in the first third of the 20th century? My mother went to college. She was born in 1913. She was not an intellectual; her father thought it was important to educate women, in case they one day needed to make a living to care for their family. My father also went to college, as did my mother's father, who was born in the 1880s.
Slipping standards have to do with many things, but they aren't all the fault of the baby boomers you'd like to blame for everything. They aren't all the fault of any single thing. But hey, I've spent a lot of time in school. Much more than you have. So I really do believe I can speak to the situation with a good deal more authority than you can.
Moi? I shall have some ice cream, I think.