Bachelors Without a Bachelor’s
Men Without College Degrees Need Mates and Money, Not Gambling, Gaming, and Trolling
The boys are back. Trump II erupted with a testosterone-fueled volley of executive orders, pardons to J6 felons, threats to invade Mexico and Greenland, and tariffs slapped on…whomever. The purpose of the frenzy is shock and awe that confuses and overwhelms. The symbol of this pathetic regime is the newly masculinized Mark Zuckerberg, who bent his knee to Trump and called for more “male energy” while showing off one of his million-dollar wristwatches.1
Trump excels at channeling male resentment – especially the justified grievances of noncollege men. They have every reason to be pissed off: in the 1980s, 40% of the highest-paying jobs in America did not require a college degree. High-paying jobs included not only engineers, doctors, and senior schoolteachers but also highly skilled factory and construction workers. People from diverse backgrounds and with a wide range of skills could reach the top. Today, high-income jobs are the province of credentialed tech and healthcare workers. Almost half of all top jobs require an advanced degree. Every teenager knows if they are on that path. Most are not.
Wealth follows income. According to the Wall Street Journal, “Thirty years ago, Americans with a college degree accounted for roughly 20% of the population and held the same percentage of household wealth as those without a degree.” In contrast, Americans with a college degree today “account for 38% of the population and 73% of household wealth.”
The Relationship Recession
Noncollege men have lost more than money; they have fallen into a severe relationship recession. More working-class men are single than ever before. Even dating apps are collapsing.2
Why are working-class men and women forming fewer stable couples? There is no single cause. Instead, there is evidence of a social cascade, where the actions of others, not individual preferences, shape ideas and behaviors.
It starts in school. Women graduate from high school in greater numbers and earn higher grades. Men are less likely to enroll in college and far less likely to graduate. Once in the job market, young men in traditionally male-dominated industries who do not have a four-year degree face stagnating wages and insecure jobs. They cannot expect to advance to the highest-paying jobs like their fathers could.
Bro culture makes matters worse by celebrating and frequently intermixing gambling, gaming, and trolling. Many women find this unattractive.
Gambling. Young men take risks -– it’s a feature, not a bug. However, this makes them more vulnerable to companies like Robinhood, which promotes options trading for people who do not understand asymmetric risk. The results can be devastating. Robinhood makes it easy for men to speculate in crypto and meme stocks — and 70% of cryptocurrency buyers are men. Crypto gambling is unlikely to slow down now that our President hawks a dodgy crypto platform (World Liberty Financial) and a meme-coin ($Trump). (Crypto was the single largest source of donors during the 2024 election cycle, surpassing even the oil and gas industry. Contributions flowed to candidates from both parties.)
Beyond financial speculation, sports betting apps that target young men have exploded. Sports betting totaled about $150bn in 2024, up 23% from 2023. Between 60% and 80% of high school students claim to have gambled in the last year, even though online betting is illegal for people under age 21. Gamblers Anonymous reports an influx of young male attendees.
Gaming. A 2024 Pew Research Center study found that 97% of teen boys reported playing video games. Sixty-one percent played daily. Girls also play, but more boys identify as gamers (62% vs. 17%) and play daily (61% vs. 22%). Video gaming can be social and a way to make friends. It can also cultivate gambling problems as video games converge with gambling by rewarding chance instead of skill. Skin-gambling websites enable players to monetize valuable in-game elements (“skins”). Players can buy loot boxes that contain random skins, mimicking the structure of slot machines.
Social media trolling. Thrice-married trollmasters Donald Trump and Elon Musk now serve as social media role models for millions of young men. Researchers at the University of Georgia found that active social media users, particularly those on YouTube and Reddit and those with less education, are more likely to invest in digital currencies. Men in this group frequently broadcast their difficulties with women.
The male culture of gaming, gambling, and trolling has been emerging for many years. In the mid-2000s, one obsessive gamer recognized that World of Warcraft players would pay real money for gold and other hard-to-earn objects in the game. He hired low-wage Chinese gamers as “gold farmers” and sold the WoW gold they won to Western players at a hefty markup. His business went bust, but the friend he hired to help raise money was stunned to discover in gamers a world “populated by millions of intense young men.” The friend, Steve Bannon, concluded that “these rootless, white males had monster power.” Bannon went on to co-found Breitbart Media and used it to direct his newfound tribe to Donald Trump's 2015 presidential campaign.
The explosion of gaming, gambling, and trolling among noncollege men coincides not only with reduced wealth and earnings. It coincides with deep social isolation – a combustible mix.
Isolated Men Are More Dangerous
Young men now have higher rates of loneliness and suicide than women. Many report fewer close friendships and reduced participation in social and civic activities. Toxic online communities that reinforce unhealthy views of relationships, politics, and identity add fuel to the fire. A culture that stigmatizes seeking help (and sometimes stigmatizes masculinity) makes matters worse.3
The not-surprising result is that many young men now delay or avoid marriage and long-term relationships, even though doing so can worsen financial pressures, contribute to toxic online cultures, and reduce their economic and social opportunities.
Although most isolated men do not become violent, isolation in men has long been associated with an increased propensity for violence. Several studies find significant links between social isolation and various forms of aggressive or violent behavior. Men who are socially isolated are more likely to engage in domestic violence and have higher rates of incarceration.4
Who can help restore prosperity and balance to the lives of working-class men? Employers need to question degree requirements when hiring. Churches can help. For the first time, young men are now more religious than young women, at least among Christians. Cultural intermediaries like Joe Rogan may be more important than we generally acknowledge. Authors like Richard Reeves, who writes thoughtfully about boys and men, deserve a broad audience. Women matter enormously, although that’s a complex topic and a longer post. Stronger unions would help men organize with colleagues and earn more. The US military, which pioneered racial equality, needs to pay attention to these issues. And we could use a president who is more thoughtful and articulate about these questions than either Biden or Trump.
Musical Coda
Witness Eric Clapton’s respect for a fast-rising musical talent half his age, who, Clapton claimed, “has no idea how good he is.”
These are hand-crafted statement watches, not tool watches. To see two men with very well-developed horological tastes, check out the musical coda.
Rising singledom is part of a fundamental demographic shift. Starting in the sixties, the growing availability of birth control enabled families to have two kids instead of four. Couples were still married; they just had smaller families. However, in recent years, declining birth rates have not resulted from couples deciding to have fewer children but a sharp drop in the number of couples.
MAGA can represent a profoundly precarious version of masculinity, as a clever study demonstrated in 2020. NYU psych professor Erik Knowles and researcher Sarah DiMuccio used Google Trends to track searches for “erectile dysfunction”, “penis size”, “penis enlargement”, “hair loss”, “hair plugs”, “testosterone”, and “Viagra”. They mapped these searches and found a strong predictive correlation between the rates of these searches and votes for Trump in 2016.
The relationship appears to be bidirectional - socially isolated individuals may become more aggressive, while those who behave aggressively may become increasingly lonely. Men who screened positive for PTSD due to violence exposure had 3.3-fold higher odds of reporting loneliness. Social isolation, measured by smaller social networks and more time spent alone, is also correlated with higher levels of extremism. An analysis of 177 mass shooters identified social isolation as the most important external indicator leading up to attacks.