[nuclear engineering] has horrible job prospects, so it might as well have become illegal.
That’s not a very accurate way to think about legal problems. For comparison, PhDs in English Literature have horrible job prospects, but that’s not evidence that English Lit is becoming illegal.
If your field of engineering, despite its productive potentials, faces political moves to shut it down and throw you out of work, that has about the same effect as making it illegal.
Facing threats of possibly somewhat lower salaries and job prospects is quantitatively far less severe than being banned. Cutting the expected value of training for a profession by 10% is very different from cutting prospects by 50% or 90%.
That’s not a very accurate way to think about legal problems. For comparison, PhDs in English Literature have horrible job prospects, but that’s not evidence that English Lit is becoming illegal.
If your field of engineering, despite its productive potentials, faces political moves to shut it down and throw you out of work, that has about the same effect as making it illegal.
Facing threats of possibly somewhat lower salaries and job prospects is quantitatively far less severe than being banned. Cutting the expected value of training for a profession by 10% is very different from cutting prospects by 50% or 90%.