Higher education isn't the only --- and may not even be the best --- way to prepare the younger generation for the competitive challenges of a 21st century, globalized world

The prosperity of my parents' era --- 1946-1976, more or less --- was based on America's dominance in manufacturing. Major AMerican corporations in such sectors as steel and autos; powerful labor unions securing high wages and good benefits; a fair income tax system... these were the major components of that prosperity. Some of the folks on the assembly line were college material. Many were not.

Many of their descendants are not college material either. These are being relegated to low-paying, low- (or no-) benefits service jobs... often even after completing some sort of third-rate college program. Better that they learn a well-paying trade, if possible.

Image: kai4107 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This is what the Brooking Institute's Hamilton Project is aiming to accomplish:
Amid the Great Recession and rapid technological changes, both workers with less education and workers who have been displaced from long-tenured jobs face challenges because they lack the particular skills that employers demand for well-paying jobs. In a new Hamilton Project strategy paper, Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney address the importance of developing workers’ skills through training and workforce development programs, and examine newly available evidence on policies that boost job opportunities and wages. Read More