Funding for Apprenticeship Programs - Is the tide turning away from college for all?

Obama announces $600 million to support apprenticeships and job training | Mid MarketPulse I read this earlier and along with other articles I've been reading over the last year or so, as well as some of the advocacy work being done by people like Mike Rowe, am wondering if the tide has started to turn and we're moving away from an emphasis on college for all and everything being academic in schools to a multi-track approach which recognizes that vocational training can be as good or in many cases better for people than an academic course.

I'm curious what others think? Is change in the air, or is it still college for all in your area. I was with my youngest at an open house for Alfred State in NY last week and they mentioned that they doubled the size of their Associates in Occupational Studies program for welding this year which meant a new instructor this year and another for next year and are also getting ready to build a new building to accomodate the increase in program size.

We can only hope the tide is turning, but I think it will be many years before we find the right balance. So many people have been told for decades college is the only way to go in life that it's going to be tough to convince them they have been fed a bunch of lies their whole lives.

I was fortunate to recieve an excellent machinists apprenticeship, which started in 1958. After I graduated with 10 years experience, I applied and got a job as a Machine Shop Instructor in the Wisconsin Technical College system. They equated my apprenticeship plus 7 years of experioence as equivalent to a Bachelors degree for certification and salary purposes. I am still certified to teach with a standard life teaching certificate. I retired after 28 years, plus credit for 2 years military service for 30 years in the pension system. I can only recommend this because it worked for me.

I hope it is changing. College is not right for everyone....its not neccesary for everyone. But I question the countries ability to digest that. Education is a BIG BIG BIG business. From elementary school right through college. Look at the billions and billions of dollars spent on education and you will come to the conclusion that the ship will not right itself without a real good audit. Without even questioning the motives of those who teach.....ask yourself......what happens to college XYZ if all the kids who attend for 2 years and then drop out do not attend for those 2 years? A wild guess on my part would be a staff reduction of about 25%........that is BIG business my friends. And it will not go away without a fight.

I think you need both. Some college AND some skill, to be effective

toolsteel said:

Education is a BIG BIG BIG business. From elementary school right through college. Look at the billions and billions of dollars spent on education .

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Every 3rd commercial is for a college. Just like the real estate and stock bubble. Expect a crash. They are searching for lemmings.

What I never understand when I read these articles is they say things like "$600 million" where the hell does that money go? How do we track it's progress both in it's investment, and it's return.

Cause if we are just going to hand out money, I'll jump in line. I want to see apprenticeship come back to America as well, But there is no "universal" program. Hell even for Machining there is no universal program.

Excuse my ignorant teenage opinion (16).

But, I'll believe it when I see it.

just because the federal government is throwing your hard earned money into another program does not mean anything. (i digress to avoid political argument here)

however, the tide is turning. But it's in inning 1. your kid wants to go to Villanova for four years and it'll cost about $150,000??? at what point do you just buy a house instead? Degrees are ubiquitous nowadays, and oftentimes worthless for making money in the real world. (ie psychology, history, geoscience, etc).

Students forget that it's an investment. Like buying a machine. You want to see your money returned in 3 to 5 years. Is this the case nowadays? No.

I did it. I borrowed money freely. Shoot, Penn State had 40,000 students, and that means 20,000 girls, and free beer. YES!

Mebfab is correct, there is a huge student loan bubble. the government guarantees student loans, if you don't repay, they will garnish your wages. The banks and moneylenders loan freely to everybody and anybody, raising the cost of schooling. Classic bubble.

Will companies realize that everyone is unqualified, and start to invest in them? That remains to be seen.

I'm a 3rd year apprentice. My company is the ONLY individually funded apprenticeship in the entire state. There is ONE other Joint Funded Apprenticeship (or maybe two, I can't remember) in the entire state.

I'd love it if more people accepted that they should go to vo-tech and learn a trade, and that society accepted that this was both necessary and honorable.

It's what our nation needs, and what I'd like to see.

But, as a cynic/realist, I'll believe it when I see it.

(Note: I just finished reading Atlas Shrugged last night, so I might be delirious)

So the money is going out. Where is it going? Who sets the requirements for an apprenticeship? What are the requirements for each profession? Who sets the rules? How long? What is being thought and who teaches? What are the qualifications for teaching? What is the end result and who is doing the testing? Question after question.
600 million? If they really want some results than 600 billion would be more like it. What the Nation needs is more like a "Manhattan Project" to recover it's lost manufacturing industry.
Just throwing money for somebody to provide some training is just garbage. To do this right, a whole new system has to be set up based on systems that work.
What I see happening is that money will be given to places to train young people without anybody setting any rules or setting up standards to adhere to and than having tests to make sure we get what we pay for.
I am thinking this will be nothing but another handout to places who just train young people to do a job for the company

TeachMePlease said:

(Note: I just finished reading Atlas Shrugged last night, so I might be delirious)

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A favorite quote of mine: "There are two novels which can change a bookish fourteen year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

I am good friends with a person who teaches in an apprentice program. He is not affiliated with any college or tech school. He teaches in the union hall apprentice programs. They advertise apprentice programs all the time. Join union and we will teach you a trade! It is a noble concept. A democrat president and funding for apprentice programs. You may want to think this one out. I wonder how nuch that training is going cost? What will be the expectation when finished?

I was a Tool&Diemaker apprentice in 1970, the Feds paid a good part of my wage(almost 3 times min. wage at time).
Of course it was Union .
The company loved it, I loved it, the Union loved it.
Perhaps that's where some of the money would /could go?
Gw

Greg White said:

I was a Tool&Diemaker apprentice in 1970, the Feds paid a good part of my wage(almost 3 times min. wage at time).
Of course it was Union .
The company loved it, I loved it, the Union loved it.
Perhaps that's where some of the money would /could go?
Gw

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A democrat, throwing $600 million at the unions?
What could go wrong?

in my apprenticeship. i was at reduced pay ($1/hr back in 1980) or $6000 over 3 years was to help pay for apprenticeship training and the $600 in tools i was "given"
.
i believe the tradition of a apprentice working at reduced pay goes back thousands of years.

DMF_TomB said:

in my apprenticeship. i was at reduced pay ($1/hr back in 1980) or $6000 over 3 years was to help pay for apprenticeship training and the $600 in tools i was "given"
.
i believe the tradition of a apprentice working at reduced pay goes back thousands of years.

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I work at full pay, except when I'm in class twice a week (no pay), and all my tools are provided.

They don't even make me do the grunt work like cleaning the boss's car or scrubbing the coolant tanks/machines down.

TeachMePlease said:

I work at full pay, except when I'm in class twice a week (no pay), and all my tools are provided.

They don't even make me do the grunt work like cleaning the boss's car or scrubbing the coolant tanks/machines down.

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.
i got payed while i was in school. doing grunt work is normal for an apprentice

DMF_TomB said:

.
i got payed while i was in school. doing grunt work is normal for an apprentice

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Hell, we don't even fill our machines with oil/coolant/waylube... Got a whole department for that!

Actually, this place is an oddity. The apprentices (17 of us) are treated like royalty, which makes the other operators resent us. (We're our own program, with our own chain of command, we have our own safety meetings, and get to interact with the muckety mucks on a much more personal level than anyone else. And our boss spoils us with apprentice shirts, hats, etc) Oh well, they could have applied for the position, same as we did, they just never got off their asses and did it.

Over here in Europe, the ed. biz is not yet a govt. funded handout system.
IOW, schools are quite cheap (free or nearly so, in general), and their main function is graduating quality students.

As such, the engineers who work in metals trades, are generally very good, and a productive part of any work they go into, almost from the start.
Most of the money for the schools comes from the government, with a minority from the students themselves.

Ratio of teachers to managers is high, with management overhead being very low, by US standards. Perhaps 1/10 of what it apparently is in the US.
As there is no great money to be made from the students, the leeches are mostly kept out and become politicians instead.
This, with inside looks at many institutes and universities (maybe 10-12), from IT to Mechnical Engineering, where often I have been a participating lecturer (In IT fields).

Someone wanting to work in the metal trades, would get a masters in mechanical engineering (or a bachelors) taking either 3 to 5 years, and costing perhaps 5000€ out of pocket for the full 5 years.
For low income people, loans and subsidies are available almost universally in the EU.

A graduating student will be able to work on a manual or CNC machine, immediately (learning the interface as needed) and be familiar with cad and cam.
Of course you get better, and much faster, with time.
As education is available, mostly educated people work in the trades.

A person with no formal education, but qualified and easily able to demonstrate it, can get a job, but its maybe 10x less common.
Social skills and good presentations are needed, if you dont have a degree.

E.g. I could take a trinket I made to a job interview, and would likely get the job.
Like a round ball bearing-ish with 2 holes meeting off center (on purpose), and perfectly meeting/matching in a position inside.
The interview would likely center on how did you do it, and how long did it take.
(If the work involved making valves etc., this would be a good demo).

In my previous position, all the 14 people we hired for techies and salesmen were engineers from local (Spanish) universities, and all were very good at their jobs.

Just a data point- I dont have a political axe or angle or opinion.