Tradesmen have never been in a position of high prestige. The most savvy tradesmen have been able to parlay their talent into independent business management & earn a upper-middle to lower-upper class income. The social prestige that tradesmen have attained is more often a product of their success in business than it is their exceptional talent in a trade alone.
Plenty of normalfags have not yet fully realized that there are tons of worthless degrees available at colleges, and there are a glut of students graduating with these degrees. They still wrongly assume that college education will lead to a job with better income prospects than the trades.
We know that reality is different. Many people still don't realize that average college grad will end up earning about the same if not less than an average tradesman--both of whom are only making a middle class income.
In terms of prestige, it's not so much that tradesmen lost any prestige over time, it's that college grads aren't graduating into a place of prestige any more & wind up in a similar or lowlier place in life as tradesmen.