God bless people who work at useful jobs

Millions of Americans don’t work. Some are unemployed and looking for work; others simply refuse to look for a job. In fact,12 percent of men in their prime working years aren't in the workforce and aren't looking for work. Millions of healthy men are living off relatives, surviving on government benefits, or working side hustles in the underground economy and not paying taxes.

Millions more have jobs but are not doing anything useful. I spent 25 years in higher education, and I can tell you that many professors have retired on the job. These professors don’t do research, teach their classes poorly, and don’t show up at their offices except for mandatory office hours (maybe six hours a week). Hardly any university schedules classes on Friday, which means that a large percentage of university faculty members are working four-day weeks.

All across the national economy, we see Americans doing nothing more than pushing paper around. People in the advertising game are blitzing us with inane commercials for products we don't want or don't need. The gaming industry is promoting gambling, which is a pernicious and addictive pastime,

Thankfully, millions of Americans are working hard at jobs that need to be done. I suffered a stroke last month in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I dialed 911, and six EMS professionals showed up at my location within five minutes, despite the fact I had given them an incorrect address. I was able to unlock the front door even though I was partially paralyzed, but the 911 dispatcher assured me that my rescuers were willing and able to break down the door to get to me,

Those people work hard and are well-trained. My EMS team got me to a hospital in time for me to receive a time-sensitive drug that limited the long-term damage from my stroke.

Now I am in rehab, working with a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, and a speech therapist. All my therapists are highly skilled young women who are enthusiastic about their jobs and full of energy. They assure me I will make a full recovery and walk again.

Our economy is changing drastically, and many college students are taking out loans to get an education that will not lead to a good job. A bachelor's degree in the humanities, liberal arts, or social sciences is a dead-end degree. A young person taking out student loans to get a degree in these soft disciplines may be committing financial suicide.

Most young people want a satisfying career in a field that pays well. Most of them seek work that is useful and meaningful. Today, smart young people don’t go to college to get a liberal arts degree. Instead, they choose majors that offer a clear path to a well-paying job and a satisfying career. 

I am grateful that some of these intelligent young people are choosing to work as first responders and healthcare workers. Our society needs them. I'm not sure it needs humanities professors.

Get smart before you go to college because you might not get smarter while you're there

 I had a stroke last month, and I spent three weeks at a rehab center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. During my time there, I was treated by several gifted occupational therapists, physical therapists, and speech therapists.

All my therapists were young women in their twenties. Every day I was inspired by these therapists’ competence, energy, and optimistic spirit.

Why did these women choose therapy as their occupation instead of gender studies or sociology? Why were they spending their days teaching elderly people how to walk and feed themselves instead of working as a government bureaucrat?

This is what I learned. The women who choose to become physical therapists and occupational therapists selected their vocation early, and they planned their college studies to reach a specific goal.

One young woman, I’ll call her Laura, told me she was awarded a state scholarship for her undergraduate studies, which she received based on her high school GPA and her score on the ACT exam. This scholarship award was good for four years, but she managed to graduate in three years, which allowed her to use her scholarship money for the first year of her graduate studies. she finished college with no debt.

Laura had to take out loans to finance her master's degree program in physical therapy, but she lived frugally and only borrowed $22,000. When the COVID crisis hit, the Department of Education put a hold on student debt collection. Unlike most student debtors, Laura kept on making monthly payments during the whole time of the COVID moratorium. She told me she reduced the amount of her debt from $22,000 to $17,000 during this time.

Unfortunately, I might say tragically, millions of college students do not pursue their vocational goals with the same discipline and clear-mindedness that Laura displayed. They see college as a time to party, to drink, and to engage in casual sex. They see student loans as a way to live a lifestyle they could not afford with their parents’ limited financial resources. They choose their academic majors carelessly. Perhaps they major in sociology because they heard it is an easy major. Maybe they choose a major like gender studies or ethnic studies in order to nurture a sense of victimhood.

When these hapless fools graduate from college, they learn that there are no jobs for people who graduated in the humanities or the social sciences. They realize they have no job skills at all. They can’t solve problems, they can’t write coherently, and they lack the people skills to be successful in the workplace.

Thank God there are still young people like Laura, who understand they have a responsibility to become productive citizens, and they have a desire to do something useful with their lives, even even if the job involves the unglamorous work of teaching an old man to walk, talk, and feed himself.

Not everyone can major in gender studies.