At what point in the past 50 years did we start expecting academic liberal arts institutions to start churning out people with vocational skills? These are entirely different things.

The fact that an average 1970's college graduate was highly employable has nothing to do with those colleges having good vocational training programs, and everything to do with selection bias of those who attended and the economics of the time.

If you need vocational skills, you should enroll in a vocational program.