Same courses in University ? No, but from my experience in school as an engineer if you don't know calculus at a decent level (integrals mainly) you're in for a rough time (other than maybe Computer Engineering, which I've always felt didn't really warrant the title although I am one). In their job they won't use it all that much, but is necessary to understand fundamentals - particularly as some go on to research. But other than that, just curious how he meant it as gatekeeping, been a while but don't recall if it was a requirement for fields more removed than math.
Calculus is interesting as all it is for the most part is breaking things down into small amounts and scaling up as needed. 4 years of that and you should be well primed to understand things as comparatively simple as budgets and taxes, hah. Guess though you have to count on the kids being a good judge or being judged well of what they want to go ahead and do in life, if you're going to tailor math teaching to them.