“So as the college degree has increasingly become the great sorting function in American life, men without degrees have increasingly found themselves sorted out,” write the authors of Nobody to Call, a new report on friendship, community, and purpose among men without college degrees.
These men did not become disconnected from work, friendship, and community all at once. That separation unfolded slowly, as they lost touch with the people and institutions that build a stable life.
A man leaves high school without a clear next step. Daily routines vanish and friends scatter. As work becomes unstable, he finds no mentors to offer support and no community institutions to which he can turn. The young man who was once merely uncertain slowly becomes an adult man without connections.
