Student debt debates have, among other things, enlivened conversation about the nation’s long-standing emphasis on college. With so many graduates unable to repay the cost of their education, questions naturally have arisen about whether college effectively serves the economy’s skills needs and, accordingly, whether many now in college might do better with some other sort of training and education.
Apart from onerous debt burdens, the waste in the long-standing “college for all” push is clear in figures on graduation and on who gets what jobs. The Department of Education reports that more than 60 percent of those who finish middle school will eventually attend either a four-year or two-year post-secondary institution, but only slightly more than half these will graduate. Meanwhile, more than 60 percent of these graduates will fail to get a job requiring their degree. In other words, only 16 percent of those involved achieve the promise of a degree for themselves and for society. For the rest, there is debt and little benefit, while the economy loses out on what they might have contributed with a different sort of training. This is hardly a good return on the national effort. It should be apparent, then, that the emphasis on college wastes public and personal resources while inducing many who don’t belong there to forgo the vocational training that might serve them and society better.
It might seem on the surface that artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics will eventually preclude the need for vocational training. It is, after all, widely known that industry, because of AI and robotics, has less and less need of the unskilled millions who once manned assembly lines and did comparable tasks in activities outside of manufacturing. Robots and offshore placement to less-developed and lower-wage countries have reduced the need for these kinds of workers. But that is only part of the picture. In fact, the AI orientation of industry today, whether it builds highways or manufactures cars or produces medical supplies, has created a huge need for skilled technicians—not quite engineers, but people of middle-skill levels, something that college doesn’t produce.
Already, U.S. industry faces constraints because of a shortage of just this sort of training. That shortage became evident as early as 2011, even though the lingering effects of the great recession had left some 14 million Americans jobless. The Manufacturing Institute estimates that now more than seven in 10 American manufacturers have difficulty finding people with this sort of essential training. By 2030, the institute reckons, more than 2 million of these sorts of positions will be left unfilled. Siemens, the huge German conglomerate with a significant presence in the United States, has confirmed these calculations. It has announced that in 2022, more than half of all its job openings are at this level.
Though college can’t meet this need, this country continues to neglect such technical training. Certainly, all the public money goes to college. During the 30 years before the pandemic, the average college-bound student could expect the taxpayer to spend some $100,000 on him or her. For vocational training, that student can expect nothing after high school. Under the present system, college isn’t a choice; it’s an ultimatum.
Yet, it’s clear that the endless expansion of college has failed to produce a supply of desperately needed middle-skill workers while injecting into the economy a surplus of people with questionable career credentials.
Meanwhile, U.S. apprenticeship programs presently involve a mere 800,000 or so workers. But there are signs of a developing change. German firms such as Siemens, as it strives to find the technicians it needs, have found a welcome reception for apprenticeship ideas, especially in depressed regions of the country. North and South Carolina have, for instance, partnered with Siemens and European firms to establish programs that combine on-the-job training with vocational courses in high school and community college. Colorado has made similar arrangements in its “CareerWise” program, as has New Hampshire. Under then-President Donald Trump, even Washington, always slow in the draw, entered the effort. The National Council of the American Worker, founded at that time, aimed to create a million apprenticeships. More recently, however, this program has lost support.
None can doubt that some careers demand the fruits of a good college education and more. But many jobs that otherwise require skill and intelligence don’t. Employers have insisted on college for many jobs that really don’t require it because they don’t trust the quality of a high school diploma and, in the absence of a vocational track, have no other basis on which to judge. The nation could serve its economy, its employers, and its workers by offering an effective vocational alternative and reallocating some of the college-linked largesse to other sorts of training.
