U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said last Tuesday that she advocated the expansion of training and apprenticeship programs to give students more choices than just attending four-year universities – this, however, contradicts many of the cuts made in President Donald Trump’s budget.

President Donald Trump’s federal budget for next year said it would reduce funding for job training by $1.1 billion, or 40 percent, shifting the majority of responsibility to states and employers.

DeVos said there’s a stigma around people who choose not to attend four-year universities and this is one of the key reasons over 6 million jobs are currently unfilled. She highlighted that we’re not training and educating people for many of the jobs that exist in the economy because the government and society at large tells everyone that attending university is the only path to prosperity.

According to the latest Census data earlier this year, 33.4 percent of Americans who are 25 years or older said they had completed a bachelor’s degree or higher, which is a distinct rise from the 28 percent with a college degree ten years ago. However given that only a little over a third of Americans have a college degree and millions of jobs are vacant, DeVos suggested expanding apprenticeship and training programs.

Read the full article on conflicting education priorities by Nihal Krishan at InsideSources