If a student wants a health care professional job, medicine and dentistry are better options and require just as much academic competition. Failing that, the student is better off going into tech or law.

If they're not smart enough for either of those? I dunno? Onlyfans? Permanent serfdom? I fear that our new society will have many who are left behind and struggling.

Lots of people ... most people work jobs that fall into that category.

I'm not sure that means much. I don't know how many folks who go into nursing are likely to just chose to be a developer or if it is that simple for them.

I have some friends from university who became nurses, one of which I was roommates with for two years during school. I helped them study for 'their most difficult math test' and it was a relatively straightforward test on changing units. They would not have passed a first year calculus class. The majority of their academic work was memorization, and then lots of hands on work in hospitals. The reason they get paid well is because the job is important and stressful, not because it requires highly technical people of which there is limited supply.

I don't say that as a slight - I know many nurses who are very intelligent people, its merely a judgement as to the academic rigor involved in getting your nursing credentials.

PS I worked at home depot during busy periods in the summer when the store was understaffed, I've worked as a waiter where I was the only person on shift because the owners/manager were idiots, and I've worked cleaning big chicken barns out in preparation for new chickens and those were all significantly more stressful than my technical work. Stress is not correlated with difficulty or limit of supply.

I think the "hardest" job I ever worked was a PC tech support call center or a job at a pizza place. I didn't pick my hours ... and the job was a heck of a lot harder than my coding job that pays WAY more.

But it wasn't like I could just go and get a coding job at the drop of a hat.