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Social media’s influence is causing Gen Z’s interest in skilled trades to rise, according to a report by Thumbtack – something a trade organization co-director said is “inspiring and eye-opening.” “55% of Gen Zers are considering a skilled trade career (up 12% from last year) – including 72% of those with a college degree,” Thumbtack’s report stated. Thumbtack is a company that helps people “care for and improve their homes” by finding a skilled tradesman nearby. “84% of both Gen Zers and their parents express high respect for the skilled trades,” according to Thumbtack’s report. The report shows that social...

Early last year, The Independent Review published an intriguing article: Hyperpoliticization of Higher Ed Trends in Faculty Political Ideology, 1969–Present. The authors, Phillip W. Magness (senior research faculty and director of research and education at the American Institute for Economic Research) and David Waugh (managing editor at the American Institute for Economic Research), assessed complex data obtained from surveys that evaluated the political views of higher education faculty [e.g., Carnegie Commission on Higher Education Faculty Survey (1969–1984), UCLA-Higher Education Research Institute Faculty Survey (1989–2016)]. The information confirms trends that Legal Insurrection has long noted: Since 2001, 2001 higher education faculty...

Remember when everyone would tell you once you had a degree, you’d be set for life? Turns out, they meant you’d be set for a lifetime of disappointment instead. Back in 2009, over 70% of recent high school grads attended college. Today, enrollment is down over 15% from its peak, with more students opting for trade jobs over office gigs. Not even cringey TikToks from the Big Four accounting firms can convince them otherwise…Career detour: In a recent survey, over half of Americans said they believe a college degree isn’t worth it. Many young people are taking their high school...

Dean says goal is to promote ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ An Alabama college is offering $75,000 in scholarships for trade programs – but only to female students. The goal “is to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in Gadsden State’s career technical programs,” according to a news release from the community college. The list of “qualified programs,” include welding, construction technology, and civil engineering. “This scholarship program is an initiative to get more women into manufacturing, construction, and transportation careers in order to help develop the workforce in our area,” Dean Alan Smith stated in the news release. Smith did not...

The higher-education industry is having a bad decade. Some problems are obvious: With wokeness and campus unrest, colleges and universities have lost some of their mystique. They’ll tell you to “follow the science,” right before they tell you that men can get pregnant. Violent antisemitic riots haven’t done much to burnish their image, nor have the limp responses to those riots from many university administrations. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make ridiculous. Mission accomplished! Then there’s the economics of it: The reward of college was supposed to be a good job at the end. [snip] Younger people are...

Increasing numbers of Generation Z are opting out of college and turning to vocational schools with hopes of higher wages and avoiding student debt, data shows. Young people who came of age during the pandemic said they have been deterred from four-year universities by high tuition and the prospect of student debt. Instead, they are attending trade schools and are being enticed by well-paying job opportunities and satisfying work. The National Student Clearing House recorded a 16 percent increase in enrollment at two-year schools with a 'high vocational program focus' and a 2.6 percent rise in community college enrollment in...

Now she's hoping to inspire the next generation of women weldersTiffany Orff owns Welding Women Syndicate, a company she started in 2020, opening her shop in Salinas in 2021. Growing up in Los Angeles, Orff got her start in real estate construction about 25 years ago. That led her to owning a fabrication shop before falling in love with welding. "There's just something about this process that you are just able to focus, and you shut down. And that's all it is, is welding. It's complete therapy," said Orff. Orff says from the start, she was hooked. Getting her formal...

Awareness of the nation's massive labor shortage problem is increasing. The problem is encapsulated by the latest news out of Kentucky, where one carpenter’s skills are in high demand. Charles Breedlove’s job “takes him everywhere ... even [to] the water," where he is building a boat deck in the small town of Paducah, according to Kentucky news station WPSD Local 6. He says that demand for his services is growing, but he’s among the few left who knows how to do the job. As reported by Industrial Skilled Trades, “[f]ewer workers are entering the trades, especially among the younger population.”

It's time to sell the business and retire — but that's easier said than done.Gary and Judi Eubanks are one of a kind. Both in their 60s, Judi is a skilled pianist and Gary can often be found playing pick-up basketball with the young people he used to coach. They have two sons and a handful of grandkids, and they’re heavily involved in their local church, where Judi is one of the piano players and Gary is almost always either leading worship or fixing the heating or air conditioning. That’s because the duo also owns All Temperature Systems, a heating,...

More financial problems for House Democrats are piling up as Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) failed to report a series of stock trades he made on time, a potential violation of federal law. After Maloney’s mother died, he inherited significant shares in several major companies from her “including those of Apple, Microsoft, alcohol conglomerate Diageo PLC, and investment management company BlackRock” for a total value of $11,051. In June of last year Maloney sold the stocks but he did not publicly disclose their sale until last week. “That’s a potential problem because federal law mandates...

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said he is “very seriously” considering a tax on high-volume electronic trading in the state, home to Wall Street’s massive server farms. “The notion is something we like a lot,” Murphy, a Democrat and retired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. senior director, said Monday, warning litigation would be a near-certainty. Though the nation’s top banks and money managers are traditionally in New York, such a tax would have huge implications for the industry, with northern New Jersey effectively serving as modern Wall Street’s digital trading floor.

I'm a long-time fan of Mike Rowe, and happened last night to see his recent 'Unsolicited Commencement Speech'. (I searched, and couldn't see if anyone else had posted this; apologies if someone already has): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnrsRHnuRKY

The idea of college-for-all puts a lot of students in a bad position, because not all high school seniors have a firm grasp of the financial risk being taken—the average graduating college senior in 2017 was $28,650 in debt. Students should fully understand the ramifications of incurring student loan debt and that there are other, less costly, post-secondary options. There are dependable careers, with attractive pay, that are attainable without a college degree, the training for which can be fostered by high schools via Career and Technical Education. An electrician, for example, makes on average $50,977 a year in Texas....

Thirteen middle-school-age girls are spending the week learning valuable skills as a precursor to possible careers in the construction industry. The group will build and wire their own lamps, pour concrete and build a free library stand over the course of the week in a bid from the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) to recruit more girls into the industry early. "There's just not a lot of talk about what opportunities are out there, and that's kind of our goal is to show the kids what else there could be," said Jordan Moore, a specialist at plumbing supplier...

A few years ago, during a panel discussion at the 47th annual Congressional Black Caucus, U.S. Representative Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.) was the opening speaker on the topic of “Putting Black America to Work: the New Skilled Trade Workforce.” Lawrence noted that the industry supported by skilled trade workers will need an infusion of youth because the average age of workers was 53 years old. Rep. Lawrence said, “We are building a new bridge from Detroit to Windsor (Canada). I’ve been told we are bringing in welders from Vietnam to help build it.” It seems unfathomable that the United States, a...

Experts testifying before Congress don’t typically start by describing the insights they’ve gained from a backed-up toilet. But when Reality TV star Mike Rowe appeared before the Senate committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation in 2011, he detailed two incidents involving malfunctioning commodes. When he was 12, he saw everything that went down the toilet reappear “in a rather violent and spectacular fashion,” Rowe recalled. His grandfather—Rowe describes him as a blue-collar magician who “woke up clean and came home dirty most of his life”—quickly ascertained the problem. What followed was an entire day of digging in the front yard,...

SAN DIEGO — The prototypes of the Trump border wall are taking shape this month in a sunbaked swath of scrubland abutting a run-down neighborhood of Tijuana, Mexico. Lined up next to each other, the 30-foot-tall concrete and steel sample barriers — some with extra-stout reinforced bases, others topped with metal spikes — certainly look ominous. The requirements established to realize President Trump's vision call for "a fence that is impenetrable, it's unscalable," said Roy Villareal, acting chief patrol agent of the San Diego border sector. "They can't dig under it. They can't cut through it." (link to the article...

Many students believe that the next natural step after graduating from high school is to go off to college. Secondary education has become such a common transition that many parents begin saving for college tuition as soon as their children are born. Although college can be the next chapter in a student's education, many teenagers still choose to attend trade school. Television personality Mike Rowe says the country is in the midst of a skilled labor shortage because workers lack the necessary training to fill the hundreds of thousands of available jobs. Lack of information may drive the notion that...

Indian-American CEOs Indra Nooyi of Pepsico and Ajay Banga of Mastercard along with India's IT major Wipro on Saturday joined scores of US companies in welcoming President Donald Trump's ambitious apprenticeship programme aimed at developing job-related skills among the workforce. . . "We applaud the president's commitment to industry-driven apprenticeships as a powerful tool to build the skilled workforce prepared for the jobs of the 21st century," Business Roundtable -- a group of chief executive officers of leading US companies -- said in a full-page advertisement released in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times today. . ....

Dive Brief: •International engineering and construction giant AECOM on Wednesday announced a six-month hiring initiative that will aim to add more than 3,000 workers to support its North American infrastructure operations. •The open positions range from skilled labor to architects and engineers, and the new hires will work on the company's transportation, building, environment, water, defense and energy projects. •AECOM said the massive hiring spree is in response to the country's renewed focus on repairing its highways, bridges and other public assets. Dive Insight: This announcement comes on the heels of the company's decision to form a federal contracting division,...