The president recently expressed his support for a great idea: investing an additional $3 billion in trade schools. That he suggested taking the money from scientific and medical research grants allocated to Harvard University — a counterproductive move unlikely to survive a court challenge — should not detract from the idea’s merit. Nor should it obscure the issue’s strong bipartisan appeal.
To be clear, the administration’s fight with Harvard and its Ivy League peers is a bad idea. One can criticize those schools for many things — in particular, their thoroughgoing failure to combat anti-Semitism in recent years — without obliterating research budgets at some of America’s most important academic institutions. One hopes the provocation was the point.
That said: If ever the president had an opportunity to unite Republicans and Democrats, greater support for career and technical education should be it.
More young Americans have been choosing such training in recent years — program enrollment is up about 20% since 2020 — and for good reason. High-quality programs can lead directly to well-paying jobs while allowing students to escape much of the debt that can come with attending a four-year college. As artificial intelligence intrudes on more areas of knowledge work, the appeal of these programs may quickly grow.
Yet too many programs are stuck in the past or otherwise not aligned to today’s job market, leading to wasted money for taxpayers and lost opportunities for students. That has been true at both community colleges and high schools. The country continues to need more mechanics, plumbers and welders, but increasingly, large numbers of vacancies are showing up in industries that technical schools haven’t traditionally emphasized, including health care, advanced manufacturing, renewable energy, information technology and other STEM fields.
Aligning education and training with job market trends could produce significant benefits for both companies and consumers, as well as for the American workforce, which could enjoy higher pay and greater mobility. Creating that alignment requires reform in four key areas.
As a start, curriculums and programs need to be more closely tied to employers and their needs. This requires leadership and collaboration from both education and business leaders, with support from philanthropic organizations. (Disclaimer: Bloomberg Philanthropies has helped establish specialized high schools in partnership with businesses.) The goal should be to equip students with skills that qualify them for jobs immediately out of high school.
Next, the federal government can do more to encourage state and local investment in such programs. A number of states and cities are leading the way, under both Democratic and Republican leadership. More federal funds should be available to support the creation and spread of programs that, based on data-driven studies, achieve the best outcomes for employment and earnings.
Congress can also incentivize employers to develop more apprenticeship programs. That can be done through modest employer tax credits — as some states now offer, and as bipartisan bills in both the House and Senate would do — or through wage subsidies.
Finally, a crucial challenge facing technical education is a shortage of qualified teachers, given that such professionals can earn much more outside the classroom. Governments can help increase the talent pool by loosening certificate requirements for teaching, allowing more experienced professionals (including older workers attracted to teaching) to enter the field; making it easier to teach part time, so that skilled professionals can maintain outside employment; and offering bonuses or higher wages to the best-performing teachers.
As for the administration, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who voiced support for vocational schools in her confirmation hearing, should insist that studies funded by her department — which can help identify the most effective program designs and avoid taxpayer waste — be spared from the chopping block. The more that governments support technical schools, the more crucial it is that they be guided by reliable data and evidence.
Career and technical education offers a great opportunity to show that Republicans and Democrats — even now — can work together on a major domestic-policy issue. The administration shouldn’t let its fight with Harvard get in the way of seizing it.
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