Programming has become one of the only paths towards a middle class life (as we've known middle class in the past). No one I know from college that doesn't work in IT makes enough money to be old-school middle class like I am.
...you must not know many people then. There's lots of opportunity for a middle class life in non-it-related professions. Something I found pretty shocking after I left the sv bubble.
Marketing, sales, numerous supporting jobs in entertainment, skilled trades and engineering, (as many mentioned) white collar food industry jobs, logistics, accounting, statistics, mediation, community builders, I could go on and on. So many diffierent types of jobs, even when you exclude all the shitty ones that make the world a shittier place, like low-information political shills and propagandists, (tiny conservative talk radio shows and online communities do decently, moderate and liberal not so much) junk and junk food marketers.
