Moreover, it’s far from clear whether all this spending on higher education is providing our economy with the workers it needs. Even as the number of Americans with a college degree has risen, a range of vital industries — from construction and manufacturing to car repair — has seen the supply of qualified workers steadily shrink.
A long-running educational experiment in Massachusetts could point the way out of these crises. The state’s extensive network of vocational-technical schools — or “voc-tech schools,” as they’re known — offers high school students a path to career success that doesn’t require an expensive four-year college degree.
Ohio could learn from the Massachusetts voc-tech model. Importing what the Bay State does right could allow Buckeye State leaders to slash student debt and address the shortage of skilled workers in such key sectors as manufacturing.
That so many Americans are struggling to pay down student loan debt is evidence of a larger higher-education crisis. Today, it’s conventional wisdom that even a modest middle-class existence requires a four-year college degree. The perceived necessity of a college education has enabled institutions to charge increasingly exorbitant tuition. Student debt levels have risen in tandem.
At the same time, those who drop out of college without a degree, or never attend to begin with, are often condemned to low-paying jobs with few reliable paths to more gainful employment. This situation describes an enormous segment of the American workforce. By one estimate, more than 44% of the nation’s workers have low-wage jobs. Of those, just under half have a high school diploma or less.
Yet companies across the economy are in dire need of skilled workers. Manufacturing employs 700,000 Ohioans — the most of any sector in the state. Employment shrank by 30,000 in the wake of the pandemic, and many manufacturers are still struggling to rebuild. Gov. Mike DeWine says training students in skilled trades could help solve this labor shortage.
In other words, the current approach to higher education is failing everyone from debt-ridden college graduates to low-wage non-college graduates — and even understaffed businesses.
Massachusetts’s voc-tech model might offer a solution.
Students in the Bay State’s 41 voc-tech schools alternate weeks between liberal arts-centered academic work and learning a technical trade such as automotive technology, carpentry, electronics, advanced manufacturing, or the culinary arts. This schedule allows kids to dive deeply into academics one week — and test out a 40-hour work week the next. Students complete projects in the community without worrying about academic class periods breaking up their on-the-job training.
This emphasis on technical know-how doesn’t compromise academics. Massachusetts voc-tech schools also offer AP classes.
The hands-on component of voc-tech curricula actually complements and deepens student understanding of more traditional academic subjects. In fact, students at voc-tech schools perform roughly on par with their peers from traditional high schools on state tests — even though they’re spending half as much time on academic instruction.
The dropout rate for students in the state’s voc-tech schools is one-third that for students in traditional high schools.
What this suggests is that students who graduate from voc-tech schools are just as prepared as their peers in purely academic schools to pursue a college degree. But voc-tech students also leave school with the technical know-how to begin a fulfilling, well-paying career in one of the many industries where skilled labor is in desperately short supply.
The result in Massachusetts has been an education model that serves the needs of students while spurring growth and creating opportunity throughout the economy. Those are worthy goals for every state. If Ohio’s leaders want to achieve them, they should consider importing the Massachusetts voc-tech model.
David J. Ferreira is a career vocational technical teacher, coordinator, principal, and superintendent and served as executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Vocational Administrators. Chris Sinacola is a former newspaper editor and the author of five books.
