Professor Charles K. Hyde, an economic historian at Wayne State University, commented in a front page story about Michigan's declining economy. The income of the typical Michigan household fell below the national figure in 2005 as the state slipped below the national benchmark for the first time since such data became available, according to Census Bureau estimates released Tuesday. Hyde remembers being stunned when he arrived from New England in the early 1970s to discover that thousands of auto workers, with little or no advanced education, made enough money to buy cottages up north -- something unheard of for most Americans. \"It has been a state where people achieved middle-class incomes with basically a high school diploma,\" he said. But increased foreign competition, oil shocks, an aging work force, a corps of well-compensated retirees and perceived lack of manufacturing quality -- all have knocked the Big Three, and Michigan, from their perches. The days of graduating from high school to a top-paying job are over, Hyde said.