You can simplify or maybe make this more accurate by saying that instead of that women don't marry down education, they don't marry down in status because, as you note, there are different forms of that than just education. Not just money, but family, beauty, health, intelligence, personal accomplishments, ... a house, etc. can provide status. In nature, before persistent wealth existed, this was more clearly that reproductive constraints mean that women are looking for a mate with the best genes. One interesting question would relate that a recent social realization has been that no, a college degree is not necessary for economic success. A good HVAC tech can make great money, can't easily be commoditized, and is very unlikely to be replaced by an AI.

I study how humans can adapt genetically and strategically to the new ecology we are building to replace the tribal ecology we left for the farms and cities of civilization. In my usual studies, based on genetics, status gets really weird, but I'll spare you.

On the other hand, In my unusual studies about strategy, I've stumbled upon something very weird that probably applies here. One way to put it is to say that human instincts are not developing normally. That might make sense in that we are in an ecology very different than we evolved in. That has a lot to do with population decline in developed nations, the reproductive instinct is not developing properly, because a behavioral release for reproduction is initiated by sex/nurturing, and birth control breaks that sequence. Another way to put it, perhaps more relevant here, is that our brains aren't developing as they should because we are missing many normal environmental releases. So I've been trying to figure out how to replace them. Ponder, in this age of information overload and disinformation, everyone says we need to be better at critical thinking, but no one says where to learn that skill. It is taught by philosophy, so why not teach philosophy? Because WWI taught us the power and wealth that comes from science. Along with the Scopes Trial, that pretty much ended the ancient battle between religion and science, with science being the decisive winner. An interesting study in meme warfare, but it wasn't only the memes of religion that lost. Science is a jealous mistress and claims all authority of knowledge. Another casualty was philosophy, which science has taught is an obsolete body of knowledge. It is not. It provides understandings and skills (like critical thinking) that science cannot provide, and for that matter, depends on.

Then it gets weird. When trying to figure out how to release those instincts I mentioned, I realized that teaching philosophy could potentially do it. At the macro level, reproduction is a survival instinct. Morals and ethics, common topics to philosophy are about survival. Quite unintuitively, they can interact at the interface of instinct and environment. Yeah, not intuitive, but it logically makes sense. At the micro level, the basics of philosophy interact with the basics of thought, even at the level of neurons. If you want guys, and the gals, to start thinking better and doing better in school, teach them the basics of philosophy at a young age, like we used to teach it before STEM crowded out everything else including Phys Ed, manual arts, civics, home economics, etc. If you think about it a bit and look at various problems our society faces (loss of moral authority the religion used to provide for one), you can see a bunch of other modern problems that teaching philosophy would solve. ... I'm writing a book about this right now, the interaction between biology and philosophy