I suspect this is more clever editing or careful selection of subjects than reality. My PhD adviser went to MIT in the late 80s/early 90s, and even then a standard homework assignment in intro physics was to make a small electric motor with simple provided materials, and was something which pretty much everyone could do. The difference is some people did the obvious thing, and some people went crazy trying to get the fastest speed possible.
So yeah, it is fun to point to people who went to MIT and say “ha ha, they are stupid too”, but honestly I don’t believe this is reflective of reality. There are plenty of explanations for the results they show. It is rude to confront people while they are trying to have fun at graduation and ask them to do some "challenge’ on camera. Who knows how many people succeeded but weren’t shown. Trying to do this with the equipment shown is rather awkward if you only have two hands, which can fluster people.
And of course, trying to draw meaningful conclusions about education or psychology from such a “study” shows more about the person doing the study than the graduates being asked…