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Column: The Education Investment States Should Be Making

  • April 30, 2019
  • Anne Kim
As the idea of “free college” gains popularity, Virginia and Iowa are instead focused on career and technical education.

In the midst of record low unemployment, many states are nonetheless struggling with ongoing skills gaps — shortages of workers with the right skills for in-demand jobs.

At the start of 2019, according to the Department of Labor, as many as 7.3 million jobs remained unfilled. These included a substantial number of “middle-skill” jobs requiring some schooling beyond high school but not a four-year degree. They were in fields such as health care, IT, welding and truck driving. The American Trucking Associations, for instance, reported a shortage of 50,000 drivers in 2017.

One reason these gaps exist is underinvestment in career and technical education. Of the more than $139 billion in annual federal student aid spending for higher education, just $19 billion goes to career and tech ed. Students generally can’t use federal Pell Grants to fund short-term, non-college-credit training programs, such as for welding certifications and commercial drivers’ licenses. Federal dollars under programs such as the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act are typically limited to the lowest-income workers.

Read Anne Kim’s full opinion piece in Governing by clicking here.

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