Timothy Ashby

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August 10, 2012 By Timothy Ashby Leave a Comment

US Must Fund Vocational Training Programs to Deal With Youth Unemployment

My daughter will return to the UK – her birthplace – next month to start a 5-year professional degree program in Materials Chemistry at the University of St. Andrews.  Shemade a wise choice.  I believe that college is a bad investment unless your child is majoring in science, technology, engineering or mathematics.  Otherwise they can expect a job flipping burgers or stocking shelves while living at home and struggling to pay crippling student loans.  And it’s NOT going to get any better.

About 50% of recent college graduates in the USA are unemployed or underemployed, on a par with Greece (52.8 %) and Spain (52.7 %). Compare this with Germany which has the lowest jobless rate among young people  – 7.9% – of any industrialized nation in the world.

Germany, like Austria (8.8 %) and the Netherlands (9.3 %), has a strong state-supported vocational training and apprenticeship program.  The US government has reduced funding for such programs, and may eliminate them altogether as federal budgets are cut in a feeble attempt to reduce the burgeoning deficit.  Bad policy.

Youth unemployment is more than just a social problem.  I predict that young Americans will start defaulting on their student loans en masse, triggering another major financial crisis when THAT Trillion Dollar bubble bursts.  It’s hard to service a $50,000 loan to pay for your degree in Contemporary Dance or Sociology when your barista job at Starbucks pays $7.25 an hour.

The US government needs to work closely with industry – especially businesses that are outsourcing jobs – to develop a comprehensive vocational program for Americans under age 25.  Such a program would NOT deepen the budget deficit.  After all, we’re spending over $8 billion per month on the hopeless Afghan war.  Just a fraction of that amount would help millions of young Americans develop skills to truly help make the USA strong again.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Politics: Have we Learned?

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About Me

About Me

An international lawyer, businessman and writer, Tim Ashby worked in Washington DC as a counter-terrorism consultant to the U.S. State Department, and then as a senior official at the U.S. Commerce Department. He holds a PhD degree from the University of Southern California, a JD from Seattle University Law School, and an MBA from the University of Edinburgh Scotland. Tim Ashby currently lives in the south of France. Read More

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