While both Democrats and Republicans expressed support for alternative pathways to college – and even passed the 2015 American Apprenticeship Initiative, giving more than $100 million to expand registered apprenticeships into new sectors – much of the focus remained on higher education.
Will Marshall, founder and president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a center-left think tank, said he remembers being criticized by more liberal friends for not embracing college-for-all policies. Marshall had advocated for public investment in apprenticeships and non-college career programs.
The tone began to change, he said, shortly after Trump was elected in 2016.
“People began to look at what I think is the most important development of national politics, which is the polarization of the parties along educational lines,” Marshall said.
That year, Trump won more support from voters without a college degree, whereas his opponent, Hillary Clinton, garnered more votes from college graduates.
The outcome was a wake-up call for progressives, Marshall said.
“It dawned on people that the non-college majority, including the hardcore Trump supporters, weren’t looking for college, they were looking for short-term training and accreditation programs, other ways to break into the labor market,” Marshall said.
“We’re living at a time where partisanship seems to be off the charts,” Marshall said. “Even issues that aren’t intrinsically ideological or partisan can get caught up in the new imperative of non-cooperation.”
For instance, the Biden administration in 2021 rescinded a Trump-era rule that allowed industry and trade groups to develop and oversee their own apprenticeship programs. They argued the industry apprenticeships were often inferior to ones approved by the Department of Labor.
Like most policy, Marshall said passing workforce solutions under the next president – whether it’s Trump or Harris – will require some give and take.
“People are looking for alternative pathways,” he said. “It’s the responsibility of our nation’s political leaders to make sure that we have a system for non-degree folks to earn and learn that is as robust as our post-secondary or higher education system.”
