Why the U.S. Fails at Worker Training

We used to put a premium on skilled labor. No longer.

Follow the money. Higher education has become a highly financialized, EXPENSIVE product. Skill/trade-based training is shorter, often cheaper so it never really got a lot of traction in our educational economy.

This is a knock-on effect to the blind spots of capital. It isn’t a perfect system because one money making scheme might undermine other schemes that really have nothing to do with these profits.

Tide1986 said:

The premise is that our culture of equality opportunity (and not equal outcomes) is to blame.

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Well, that's unquestionably part of it.


Somewhere along the way, a college education AND the right to a loan to get it in pretty much whatever (regardless of return) ruled the day.

I would put this in that category with so many other things that began as good ideas - Social Security, GI bill, Medicare/Medicaid....too many other things.....and they built ready-made constituencies of voters in for the politicians, who could then go scare whoever is deriving a benefit with "if X gets elected, they're going to cut your benefit."

To give the most notable example, there is an entire group of 70-year olds right now that actually believe their Social Security is "my retirement," and it never was intended to be such. It actually began as ONE-THIRD of one's retirement that the worker was supposed to supplement with his or her own savings and pension plan/investments. My ex-FIL goes full blooded rant when you point this out to him, insisting that it's a "retirement" he's earned because he paid in.

I don't want to get bogged down in the details of that, but it's the same thing with education. What sincerely began as a noble intent to enable millions to leave perpetual poverty (remember, college education in most of the countries back in the day was only for those already born to wealthy status or close to it, with few exceptions) turned into a "well, we can't turn down the poor white kid in Mississippi who wants to major in the Classics at Brown University" being funded as equally as the Asian kid who wants to do something with the promise of a job in the computer world.

Trades were now looked down as something you did because you were stupid, meaning "not smart enough to get into college." And trades, of course, were overrun with union membership and corruption so let's not pretend that was pristine, either.

I envy Germany's educational system. It's far more practical and efficient than ours, but it would be hard to implement fairly in the U.S. given the significant regional disparities in lower-level education funding.



Meanwhile, Trump's administration wants to make for-profit colleges great again.

selmaborntidefan said:

Well, that's unquestionably part of it.


Somewhere along the way, a college education AND the right to a loan to get it in pretty much whatever (regardless of return) ruled the day.

I would put this in that category with so many other things that began as good ideas - Social Security, GI bill, Medicare/Medicaid....too many other things.....and they built ready-made constituencies of voters in for the politicians, who could then go scare whoever is deriving a benefit with "if X gets elected, they're going to cut your benefit."

To give the most notable example, there is an entire group of 70-year olds right now that actually believe their Social Security is "my retirement," and it never was intended to be such. It actually began as ONE-THIRD of one's retirement that the worker was supposed to supplement with his or her own savings and pension plan/investments. My ex-FIL goes full blooded rant when you point this out to him, insisting that it's a "retirement" he's earned because he paid in.

I don't want to get bogged down in the details of that, but it's the same thing with education. What sincerely began as a noble intent to enable millions to leave perpetual poverty (remember, college education in most of the countries back in the day was only for those already born to wealthy status or close to it, with few exceptions) turned into a "well, we can't turn down the poor white kid in Mississippi who wants to major in the Classics at Brown University" being funded as equally as the Asian kid who wants to do something with the promise of a job in the computer world.

Trades were now looked down as something you did because you were stupid, meaning "not smart enough to get into college." And trades, of course, were overrun with union membership and corruption so let's not pretend that was pristine, either.

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True. It is 'his' in that he earned it but everyone should realize that it is suppose to be only a part of your retirement. It is still a persons own responsibility to supplement SS to the extent that they want to be 'comfortable' after retiring.

Bamaro said:

True. It is 'his' in that he earned it but everyone should realize that it is suppose to be only a part of your retirement. It is still a persons own responsibility to supplement SS to the extent that they want to be 'comfortable' after retiring.

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Of course.

But you have people who actually seem to believe that "because I paid in" they're on the gravy train.

The other thing is that the average person draws out FAR MORE than he puts in.

I teach in high school career technical education, and at least in Alabama, it's slowly growing as a viable option for high school students. We're still fighting the disrespect because some of our students will not be going to a four-year university, even a "lower-level" school like a UAH, UNA, or UAB (compared to Alabama, Auburn, etc.). I am encouraged, however, that my school has tried to even appeal to the potential college students with providing a skill that will enable them to work for more money and still attend college. For example, I know of several female students in our cosmetology program that want to have a career in nursing. However, they already know (they're juniors) that they will have to pay for their nursing program themselves. So, instead of going 100% with student loans, or hoping for multiple scholarships, they have found a way where they can get their Alabama cosmetology license, and be able to use that license during the day and they go to school at night. They would even have the ability to charge their own rate at certain places. I just find that to be an incredibly mature thought process.

I'm specifically teaching in electronics and robotics, and I'm trying to steer some of my students to the Alabama FAME program at Calhoun CC. It's a five-semester work-study program where students work 40-hour weeks for a sponsoring manufacturing company in north Alabama, and make $13.55/hour to start. They work 3 days/week, and go to class 2 days/week. If they do good work and/or get good grades, they're eligible for up to $500 raise per semester. When they graduate, they have an advanced manufacturing certificate where they can work and fix the machines in the plants. They will also have the work experience, so they can either walk into a job where they worked during the FAME program (if there's a spot available) or the sponsoring company will work to get them placed at a different plant elsewhere. Hopefully, we can get more and more support like this for all CTE programs in Alabama.