“Dirty Jobs” host Mike Rowe said in a Thursday interview that the death of shop class is to blame for the country’s $1.6 trillion in student loan debt.
Rowe joined Stuart Varney on Fox Business to discuss his new book, The Way I Heard It, and was asked why there are “seven million unfilled jobs in our country.”
“Are we just not training people for these jobs? Is that the problem here?” asked Varney.
“It’s not just that. It’s that we have unintendedly maligned an entire section of our workforce by promoting one form of education, in my opinion, at the expense of all of the other forms. Forty years ago, college needed a PR campaign. We needed more people to get into ‘higher’ education, but when we gave the big push for college back in the ‘70s, we did it at the expense of alternative education,” Rowe replied.
He said that the country’s leaders told students if they didn’t get a degree, then they would “wind up turning a wrench.”
“That attitude led to the removal of shop classes across the country, and the removal of shop classes completed obliterated from view the optical and visual proof of opportunity for a whole generation of kids,” Rowe said. “The skills gap today, in my opinion, is a result of the removal of shop class and the repeated message that the best path for most people happens to be the most expensive path. This is why, in my opinion, we have $1.6 trillion of student loans on the books, and 7.3 million open positions, most of which don’t require a four-year degree.”
“We’re just disconnected. We’re rewarding behavior we should be discouraging. We’re lending money we don’t have to kids who are never going to be able to pay it back to train them for jobs that don’t exist anymore. That’s nuts,” Rowe concluded.
Another Fox News regular, actor John Ratzenberger, said in an August interview that the removal of shop classes from public schools forces people to rely on the government.
“They also canceled shop classes about 30 years ago,” he said at the time. “Just wiped them out. And, who knows, maybe it was political because if you don’t give people skills they have to rely on the government. But if you give them skills, they don’t need the government.”
Watch Rowe’s full interview below:
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of Battleground State News, The Ohio Star, and The Minnesota Sun. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Autoshop Class” by the US Department of Education. CC BY 2.0.
I had what is considered a trade in my 2 year Air Force career. I loved every minute of it.
I had what is considered a trad in my 2 year Air Force career. I loved every minute of it.
Mike Rowe nails it. I graduated highschool in 1967 with a “Liberal Arts” degree [I was lazy] when back in those days I could have had a curriculum focus on business, metalworking, woodworking, or auto repair. My Liberal Arts degree wasn’t even good enough for bum fodder, and it didn’t take very long to find that out. ~:<{
Ha ha ha
I am a retired electrical engineer. I took the college track, and it served my family well, but I am *SO* blessed that I took all those shop classes. Wood shop, welding, drafting, electronics, even non shop classes like band. Besides being a design engineer, I can also fix just about anything electrical OR mechanical. I have wired so many houses, I’ve lost count, plumbing, framing, drywall, concrete – you name it, I can do it. I didn’t learn all those trades in school, but it gave me the drive to try and the confidence to LEARN new skills. As an adult, I had never laid tile, sweat soldered copper pipe, or installed hardwood flooring, but I learned how and now I’m semi-pro. I’ve taught my kids to do the same. When they have “house” trouble, they call dad, and I go teach them how to fix whatever’s needed. Last weekend, I replaced a kitchen faucet. That’s not normally a tough project, but this one fought us tooth and nail (70 year old galvanized pipe!). We spent 10 hours getting it done, but we solved it. Next month, another son is laying hardwood flooring. It’s fun to help, and saves everyone a TON of money. I’ve lived in my house for 40 years and have NEVER had a house call from a technician. I’ve fixed everything myself. Now, in retirement, I’ve turned to woodworking. Kids are missing SO much by not having this training available.
College track means something entirely different than this. Most school systems don’t have time or the available electives to support students that want shop. This is due to the long term curriculum planners at the schools eliminating the shops and replacing them with required character education programs favored by administrators. Mike for Secretary of Education! Administrators don’t like shop offerings because they require more equipment and the teachers are hard to find because of low pay.
Our school system is out of control. Not only are students learning less, but are leaving behind a whole class of young people. These are the same people who through hands on (not college desk jobs) built this great nation. When I see college degrees going to waste by graduates who are working in fast food restraunts, mowing lawns, doing everything but what their education prepared them for, it makes me ill. What a waste of money, time and effort! I see huge sums going into the school districts, property taxes soaring to support them. We need to revamp the system, not by those who benifit by being inside the system, but by basic citizens who see the waste, poor ciriculums, and lack of skills shown by administrators.
Kids should be offered skilled education, but they still need basics in business, english/communication, science, and some of the arts. They will be well rounded individuals who will know the basics of starting and succeeding in a business of their own.
I am a product of all those shop classes, and growing up on a farm where we fixed all out farm stuff plus out toys, boats and motors, bicycles and later motorcycles. I took Vocational Agriculture all 4 years in high school, and a power mechanics class. Our Vo Ag instructor everything that had to do with farming. We turned an old horse racing stable into a hog barn/sale arena, We did all the concrete, carpentry, electrical wiring and plumbing. We built the first gooseneck trailer in our part of the state. We did all kinds of automotive work, including some body repair and painting. I got drafted into the Army in 1970, and because of those shop classes I ended up fixing helicopters in Vietnam, on a secure airfield and not out in the brush getting shot at because of those classes!!! I came back and went to an electronics school and got a job fixing copiers for Xerox. I made a very good living fixing copiers, much better than some of my classmates with a college education!!!!!
A big problem has been the destruction of our unions that did nearly ALL the training of workers outside of our high schools and colleges. Who ruined and killed our unions?
Amen brother!
Who passed NAFTA?
This is so true but sad at the same time. I went to the same school as you, Mike Rowe, I graduated in 88. I was probably the only 15/16 yr old girl who was pissed off that Overlea got rid of auto shop. I come from a family of cops and mechanics, my dad and uncles taught me alot about engines, and was looking forward to learning more. But was shot down, Overlea stated ” due to lack of participation…”. But I can say that , I am glad that I was required to take shop class. Otherwise I wouldn’t know how to use table saw, or a band saw, or what tin snips were for. I enjoyed my time in these classes.
But back to your point, most kids now a days are looking to get into the financial, technology, and medical fields, that they don’t believe that shop classes would benefit them. So they concentrate on their grades and hope they get a scholarship for college. If they don’t get a scholarship, then they have to apply for financial assistance or a student loan. But now a days, the government offers to wipe out their student debt, so why wouldn’t they apply for loans.
But back to shop classes, kids today don’t know how to cook or don’t want to. Heck all they have to do is Google their favorite restaurant and have their food deliver. Or they sign up for a monthly meal plan where the food is delivered to them with instructions how to prepare it.
Wonder how many kids know how to change a tire? I know of a handful of guys and girls who didn’t, I ended up changing their tire and made them help me so they would know what to do if it happened again. They thanked me and to this day most come see me everytime they’re in town, even introduced me to their parents, who thanked me again for my help, I’m a bartender in OC.
But again, if they were required to take shop class, then they would’ve known how to do this.
Bring back shop classes!!
I was shocked when I moved here and saw no public vocational tech schools in California. Guess who owns the ridiculous not even good vocational tech schools in California? Senator Dianne Feinstein’s husband, Dick Blum. And he gets the School tuition funded at $27,000 per year per student thru the Federal Government. Hmmmm….with a wife who can see that happens, sort of like when she got on the US Postal Service governing body to endure all properties were sold by her husband’s company, with lands owned by the taxpayer with leases he had to pay on for his Rincon Towers in downtown SF sold to him….with income to help pay for the US Postal Services gone forever…wow. So when I first saw California had no public vocational tech schools like Georgia has, where students pay for instance $5,000 per year and come out making huge and good pay at about $120,000/year as airplane mechanics and in much lower cost to live Southeast, with great homes and education….I knew California was a backwards state working for millionaires creating monopolies to enrich themselves, even stealing ad nauseum from everyone. Got it?! Also, as an architect who graduated from Georgia Tech, I am fully aware that everyone’s brains and talents are different, and that you should use your God-given talents accordingly. Nothing is shameful, as if you can’t do college!!! It is about your brain and how it works, what you can do is always of great value!!!!!
Individuals who flat out tell falsehoods should be ashamed. California has vibrant public vocational tech programs, that are public. One need only search “Public Vocational Tech programs, California, to find them. AS to the other false statements, Mr. Blum has investments in for-profit higher education programs, that are career versus degree oriented. Some offer online programs, other s are more in the vocational/technical field. The only federal funds used would be those that any student applying to higher educational/vocational programs would be eligible for, and those are student loans. if one truly wishes to look at those profiting from connections, one has to look no further than the Presidents Family. All his children have vastly increased their wealth, through no skills of their own.
Oh, Boo! You ignore the Democrat politicians whose children automatically get into Harvard and Yale etc., no matter how dumb they are. Dreamer. All states have Vo-Tech programs in community colleges. CA isn’t special in that regard. Our children are being brainwashed to believe that they should automatically prepare for college while in high school and that’s where the emphasis is. Mr Rowe is right. College isn’t for everyone and those students should get as much attention as the college bound students. I attended the first Associate Degree in Nursing (RN) program offered at a community college in MS. It was a fast-tract initiative to assuage the nursing shortage and offered affordable tuition etc. Win, win for the students, state and nation. My family was low income and I did not have to borrow a penny.
Awsome Barb ! Congratulations !
Here we go again .Blame the President and his kids . Ever occur to you that they each Do HaveA Brain. When did it become a problem with you when a parent teaches his kids how to make a living other than what a political party thinks he should do.
evidently no P.E. class either or there might be less obesity. What are the schools doing?
They teach basketball dribbling 101
that’s not the whole story.
it’s also “right to work” states that can fire anyone for any reason and lack of unions.
or how employers will bring up politics so they can fire the leftists.
or mass layoffs.
Mike Rowe and many people commenting here are also ignoring the fact that college doesn’t have to be academic. if tuition is paid for by our tax dollars, that also means we can afford to people people in welding school and STEM who actually want to be there.
and if we want to do big infrastructure projects, that means we need leftist presidents that are willing to cut the military budget and end the corporate wars based on lies.
WOW !
I’m not surprised. I still am angry about not being to take shop when I was a senior in high school in 1980 because I was female, I would have loved it!
“College is not for everyone, it will never amount to anything for you”. So my high school guidence counsler told me as she signed me up for mostly shop classes. The best thing that could have happened to me. I was good with my hands but not so much with books or academic classes. Went to a trade school for both auto and diesel mechanics. Did very well and became a well known regional mechanic and trouble shooter for numerous auto and construction equipment companies. Started my own small construction equipment and engine rebuilding business for 18 years, was then bought out by a larger company and asked to run one of their divisions for 14 years before retiring. Just think of a college graduate that needs his car, appliances, plumbing, heating, or home electrical, repaired. Its the guy that went to trade school, that must keep up with the latest codes , changes in systems, the new inovations on systems, he is hiring. I wish the academics in this country would tell high school students the truth. Not everyone is a College student but can still make a good living wage and raise a family but go to a trade school.
Nice move. Congrats!
Okay. Some of the debt. But not all. We still need teachers, doctors, and other professionals. My girlfriend racked up $190,000 in debt, but she’s now a licensed therapist who works with drug addicts.
Sounds like social work. No money there.
He is not saying all. It’s all the loans to certain students, that in truth, will not have a chance in Hades to make it through College. By no means that they are ignorant, it is just the structure in themselves and what avenues they are molded to take due to these some of these changes. Some do not have the will or discipline for that type of structure(college). We all know that seeing some folks that are close enough to us that we know. We all have those folks in our families. They have strengths some of us do not …college may not be one. Most have been programmed like a robot and money lended out that way, hence his point.
Yes.trade schools should be their for the kids who can’t do college. Being smart is not always book smart. Common since will take one a long way.
For me, English is my third language. It used to be a compliment to claim that a person speaks English like a native. My prayer for you is that you search for a class to help you to learn the language of America.
Amen
Amen!