Thread by @keselowski

Quick thread on the state of our country’s educational system from my perspective as a new business owner privileged with this platform-

As we approach a key election year, inevitably my timeline is full of all kinds of nauseating political rhetoric.

One of the main talking points over the last 2 elections has been the rising costs of a 4 year college education and the lack of quality jobs behind the degree(s).

Certainly a higher education is important for any population base in an advanced nation to be successful as the USA 🇺🇸 continues to be; however I find myself curious as to what the ceiling should be and who defines “higher education” standards.

Driving that point home for me this week is a stark contrast between my own businesses need (highly skilled/educated and technical savvy work force), a base of the population with a 4 year college degree facing no jobs & the latest State Department report on China’s actions.

For instance- my company @KAMSolutions placed an open job position for a CNC programmer (2 year technical college requirement) offering great pay and benefits, state of the art facilities to work in and all the required resources to be successful.

At this time, we can’t even get a qualified application and we are not alone. It’s been so bad that our only options are to poach from another company (which is not sustainable/what we believe in) or painstakingly train an employee from scratch.

With the supposedly mature educational infrastructure we have and the current political rhetoric (free tuition for degrees outside of technical colleges); this gap is astounding to me. On Glassdoor we are seeing this position alone open for some companies at up to 30 + weeks!

Sure the economy is booming in a lot of ways, however the skills gap (what the workforce is educated to do vs what the markets really need) is still very real and effects us all tremendously every day in pricing and availability of goods.

The consequences of not addressing our current skills gap are similar to compounding interest and extend far beyond my own business example.

The skills gap is causing us to abandon key principles that lead to our country’s success and seed them to the rest of the world.

These unfilled/high paying jobs are being handled elsewhere and our population is rapidly losing social mobility (a big part of the American dream) for an entire generation of younger Americans. I can see this discontentment spreading and morphing rapidly within my own age group.

IMHO: as we continue to fight to develop a real solution internally It’s become a severe national security risk. From losing our technology abroad to nations with dissimilar values to motivating our youth to dismiss/challenge our capitalist foundation and beyond.

Knowing that I’m privileged to have a large platform like twitter; I strongly urge parents, legislators and guidance counselors across the country to address this matter immediately. Their’s no right solution for everyone but I’m sure we can do better than where we currently are.

And If by chance your a young adult about to graduate high school, looking for some advice from a business owner & reading this today. Your about to make a critical decision in your educational path, good luck & choose wisely.

Please think about a technical college. 😊👍🏻

Bradk