Not Every Good Job Requires a Four-Year Degree

What the issue is

We have spent about forty years telling every kid the same thing: get into a good college or get left behind.

The result is a generation carrying debt for degrees that didn't lead where they were promised, while the trades — the work that keeps a community running — cannot find enough people. Try getting a plumber, an electrician, or an HVAC tech out to your house this month and see how long you wait.

There are people in this district who would be excellent at that work, make a good living doing it, and own a home years before their friends finish paying off student loans.

What Congress actually controls

This is one of the places where federal policy directly caused the problem.

Congress writes the rules for the entire federal student aid system — who gets a loan, what a Pell grant can be spent on, which institutions qualify, and how long a program has to run to be eligible. Those rules were built around the traditional four-year degree. A student heading toward a bachelor's has a well-worn federal path. A student who wants to become a welder or a lineman often finds their program doesn't fit the federal boxes.

Congress also funds the federal workforce and career-technical education programs, and sets the rules for federally registered apprenticeships.

In other words: the federal government put its thumb on the scale toward one path, and Congress is what put it there.

What needs to change

Make federal aid work for the trades. If federal student aid is going to exist, it should be usable for shorter technical and certification programs that lead directly to a job, not only for multi-year degrees. That is a change to eligibility rules, and it is Congress that writes them.

Fund career and technical education seriously. The federal money for workforce training exists. Its share of what Washington spends on education is small compared to what goes toward the four-year track, and it produces graduates who go straight into work that can't be outsourced.

"We need to develop more trade schools to provide an education for those who are not able to afford the more expensive colleges and universities but for them to learn a skill set, a trade." — Kevin Martin

Get out of the way of employers who want to train people. Companies that need engineers, technicians, and skilled workers should be funding programs and training on the job. Federal policy should make that easier rather than harder.

Use the model that already works, in our own backyard. Georgia Tech built its reputation on students who studied in the morning and applied it in the afternoon and evening across mechanical, chemical, industrial, electrical, and civil engineering. They graduated having done the work. Federal workforce and apprenticeship dollars should be pushed toward programs built that way.

Why it matters

This is the most direct route to a better living for the largest number of people in this district — and it doesn't require taking on debt to get there.

It is also how you bring business back. Companies go where the skilled workforce is. Build the workforce and the jobs follow, which gives young people who grow up here a reason to stay.

A young person here should have two respectable paths, not one. Federal policy currently funds one of them properly.