CV NEWS FEED // As the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies continue to transform the workforce, schools are investing significant sums of money in vocational and trade-focused education, according to a recent report by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
“School districts around the U.S. are spending tens of millions of dollars to expand and revamp high-school shop classes,” the WSJ reported this past weekend.
These schools “are betting on the future of manual skills overlooked in the digital age, offering vocational-education classes that school officials say give students a broader view of career prospects with or without college.”
Per the WSJ, this investment in hands-on education is intended to serve as “a hedge against” the apparent inevitability of a future dominated by AI technology.
“With higher-education costs soaring and white-collar workers under threat by generative AI, the timing couldn’t be better,” the article stated.
The WSJ piece cited the example of one suburban high school near Madison, Wisconsin, which “completed a $90 million campus overhaul in 2022 that included new technical-education facilities.”
“About a quarter of the school’s 2,300 students signed up for at least one of the courses in construction, manufacturing and woodworking,” the report added.
A former English teacher turned welding instructor at the school told the WSJ: “We want kids going to college to feel these courses fit on their transcripts along with AP and honors.”
The article went on to note that “more younger workers are finding blue-collar careers” amidst a changing employment environment.
“The share of workers ages 20 to 24 in blue-collar jobs was 18% last May, two points higher than it was at the start of 2019, according to an analysis by payroll provider ADP,” the report pointed out. “Enrollment in vocation-focused, two-year community colleges jumped 14% in fall 2024 compared with a year earlier.”
This jump is nearly five times greater than the 3% increase in enrollment at public four-year colleges during the same period, the WSJ indicated.
However, the drastic rise in vocational trade-focused education is not without any challenges.
“Roughly half of college graduates end up in jobs where degrees aren’t needed,” the piece continued. “Yet many high schools aren’t equipped to help students who want to skip college.”
The report noted that one major challenge of vocational education is that it is “generally more expensive than math or English classes,” in part because “[r]ecruiting shop teachers is tough, given the generous wages paid for skilled trade work.”
In many areas, “even with the expansion of the district’s vocational classes, student demand outpaces available seats.”
Last year, CatholicVote reported that “TV host and skilled trades advocate Mike Rowe called Generation Z ‘the next toolbelt generation,’ emphasizing that many young people are choosing blue collar careers over bankruptcy from student loans.”
Rowe explained: “They’re just saying, ‘Look, why do I want to start a career in a major I haven’t even declared yet and go that far into debt to pursue a job that probably doesn’t even exist, when we got 10,000 other jobs over here… that don’t require a four-year degree?’”
Readers with a subscription to The Wall Street Journal can read the full WSJ report here.
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