Trump Suggests Giving Trade Schools $3 Billion of Harvard’s Grant Money
Do it. All of society benefits from those who graduate from trade schools.
I say do it.
President Donald Trump proposed taking $3 billion of Harvard’s grant money and gifting it to trade schools:
I am considering taking Three Billion Dollars of Grant Money away from a very antisemitic Harvard, and giving it to TRADE SCHOOLS all across our land. What a great investment that would be for the USA, and so badly needed!!!
Harvard doesn’t need the money. It has, what, like $55 billion in endowments?
I’m also pretty sure it could raise money for research.
Trade schools offer essential skills.
Everyone needs an electrician, carpenter, plumber, welder, mechanic, and HVAC technician.
Even cosmetologists! Almost all of us get our hair cut, right?
Every single person needs the services that those professions provide. Even if you rent, your landlord relies on those professions to operate the buildings.
Harvard needs those people to keep the buildings functioning. Those labs and materials required for the critical research?
Yeah, those who attend trade schools meet those needs.
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Comments
How about taking $3 billion of Harvard’s grant money and not spending it?
Spending the money here would actually be really helpful to people wanting to develop actual useful skills that would benefit society.
The money is not there. It doesn’t exist. Deficit spending is deficit spending. Our Constitution provides for a national defense, “post roads”, and little else. Education is not in there.
Back before all of these government-backed student loans, state and cith college tuition was dirt cheap, and trade schools were reasonable in price. Loans from private institutions were available if you were studying for something where there were actual job prospects.
I agree that it should just not be spent but Congress is going to appropriate it because they can’t help themselves so it should probably be spent on something worthwhile. Trade schools are one of the best investments in our students. The money is better spent helping someone learn how to be a welder, nurse or truck driver than a gender studies major with no hope of paying back a loan or getting a job outside of more government money.
Trade schools deserve more than that. Give them all the Ivy League college grants.
Yes. Yes!! YES!!!
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Yes.
Rather, he should find a way to reintroduce trades courses into public high schools. That is the appropriate lifestage to instill career interest.
My local HS had the standard trades courses for a long period, only to begin trashing them 25 years ago, starting with the hardcore ones (auto, wood, metal). They let a couple like culinary and beauty run for a few more years, then trashed them, too. They offer a semi-plausible arrangement with a specialized county trade HS which is 30 miles away, no transportation, and the kids blow pretty much the whole school day every time they attend a single session there. This is third-class accommodations for what should be offered as a first-class option.
Not rather, in addition to…
When I was in middle school we had a woodshop and drafting classes. To this day, I still use those skills. Especially drafting. CAD is great for finish drawings, but not good for early concept drawings.
I worked with an architect. I would provide the framework in CAD, and he would take thaeand render the concept in a ‘softer’ form. We worked well together.
I graduated in 79. I rebuilt a 351 Windsor engine in Auto Shop class my junior year.
THAT’S where the engine out of my ’72 Grand Torino Sport went!
In our auto shop class, one of the assignments was to tear down “one of the transmissions over on that shelf”, meaning Chevy 3-speed sticks.
One kid managed to carry That Other Transmission Sitting There over to a bench, tear it down, and re-assemble it. The teacher about had a hæmorhage! It was a Borg Warner type 35 automatic! (That same kid went on to a scholarship at MIT…)
It was required when I was in high school to take something in trades and many options were there. Mechanic, wood working, metal working, home economics, FFA and so on. Heck, the building trades had local businesses donate material and the class built a house every year from ground up and when it was sold paid the material costs back. The rest went to charity. I took wood working and mechanical drawing. None of that exists anymore.
I did best in auto shop and in print shop. Wood is my arch enemy.
The rot started early.
In the late ’60s, junior year, I elected to take typing. I was refused. (My high school interpreted “elective” like a Democrats interpret “have a conversation” — you got to make a “choice,” as long as they agreed with it.)
“You’re trying to slack off. You’re in the college track. You’re going to be a professional. You’ll have a girl to do all your typing” (yes, they actually said that). I caved.
I went into the computer field. Guess what I spent all day, every f*g day of my 55 years of “professional” life doing? I never learned to type “properly,” I still play the keyboard like a chromatic accordion.
The next year, I elected mechanical drawing. Got the same pushback. “You’re wasting your time. You’re going to be a professional.” I replied, “That’s right — I’m going to be a professional engineer, and that’s why I’m going to take mechanical drawing.”
They hadn’t considered that argument, and they actually relented.
The first 10 years of my professional career was in innovative computer graphics — win.
An ironic byproduct was that they had no way to schedule a student for both mechanical drawing and honors English, so they had to seat me in bonehead English. Instead of developing the indispensable cocktail-party skill of analyzing the fantasies and vagaries of absurdist authors and playwrights, I had to tighten up my basic skills in grammar, spelling, composition, and oral delivery. It was like boot camp, and I came out grammatically fit, ready to take on anything from sales presentations to federal procurement contracts (guess what else I did professionally?)
As for the value of typing, I married a girl who graduated Katie Gibbs (a white-glove secretarial academy) instead of college. Typing, shorthand, filing, bookkeeping, the works. Worked only temp positions after we were married, but anytime she wanted to work, she had a great paying position inside two days. Many of them asked her to go permanent, but she preferred the flexible life.
Yes.
We need more skilled jobs and less lawyers. If we are going to open more factories in this country, the time is now to start training new workers.
Excellent idea. It will be interesting to see what novel reasons the Democrats invent to oppose it.
TDS
It’s racist.
Kinda needed too if we’re bringing manufacturing back to the U.S.
Trade schools like are local matter. If you want to eliminate the DOE and return schools to the state than that includes trade schools.
Instead of spending everything cut, how about just removing it from the budget and either using it to pay down the debt or return it to the taxpayer.
One of the problems I have with Trump is he a spender not a budget cutter. No surprise giving his background, but he’s now spending your and mine money and frankly I want it to stop.
yeah
just posted the same
you can see where people really stand when the approve of the things they like to be funded but take a stand against using tax money for other things like sa
abortion
I don’t think the government should be in the schooling business AT ALL.
But as long as Trump is going to blow this money instead of saving it (and you know he will), at least it should go to the optimum place.
Yes, but the Feds have the ability to award grant money to the states -with stipulations attached. So states can get money earmarked only for trades education, but are not forced to take the money if they choose not to do so.
thats just it
the feds not suppose to have the ability to offer it in the first place
local control means more control by the people who actually dish out the money
throw out corrupt local politicians etc
LOL You’re at least 100 years late on that idea…. Trump may work true miracles but the idea that you’re going to get the Feds from collecting funds and then doling them out as they choose.
Though written constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people; they fix for the people the principles of their political creed.
—Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, 1802. ME 10:325
A slim hope, but still a hope.
The federal government should not be funding anything but the federal government, and definitely not NGOs
The great Mike Rowe approves. He has been vociferously advocating for skilled trades, and, for college students to pursue those paths, rather than obtain unmarketable and worthless degrees with concentrations in nonsensical and farcical disciplines.
Excellent, as long as the money goes sufficiently to supporting trade school programs (equipment, instructors, students). I have seen first hand the inefficiencies of various existing programs that support rebuilding the Defense Industrial Base, in particular the Submarine Industrial Base, less than 10% of the money gets through to developing the students, likely closer to 1%.
costs go down with less government involvement
conflict of interest..favoritism goes down/away when the government sticks to its actual job of being as impartial as possible
no money given out for any of this
off topic
macron wifes slugs him in the face and the meetoo garbage is quiet
Rumor is she’s a guy, so…
Hormones?
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College has, in part, become what high school was supposed to do. I see the first year now as totally remedial… wasted for many. Yes, in the old days a college education was the gateway to higher learning…. and touted by the Left…. yet many degrees are worthless trappings in the real world. College was been made upscale DEI. Making college for “everyone” defeated what college was for.
They turned “everyone should have a chance to get into college” into, “everyone has to be let into college.” What’s scary is that these are the same people who run state lotteries.
This was becoming the case way back in 73. My freshman roommate took remedial math because he couldn’t hack calculus and he wanted to be a doctor or dentist.
I nominate Mike Rowe for a cabinet position!
I took wood shop in high school (yea, I’m that old) and even though I wound up in a career of installing advanced computer systems, the experience was very valuable and improved my reasoning and problem solving skills.
A side benefit was how it enhanced my status with the ladies. In addition to the wood inventory, they had several sheets of plexiglass in various colors. Using a band saw, a sander and a polisher, I was able to make 3 layer laminated heart shape necklaces (red/black/red) that proved to be very popular.
Very creative jewelry idea.
Ha ha! My only manual training came from my dad. But as their resident “engineer,” I was once given the responsibility of furnishing an attractive “model” computer room for a company sales office. Lag bolts, tung oil, drop shelves.
How about NOT spending it?
Trump is like a spoiled child. Today he said Putin has gone absolutely CRAZY.
How does saying Putin has gone crazy make Trump a spoiled child?
Explicate.
@steves59 My post makes no sense. I hit something and it went out before I was done. I like it that Trump shoots from the hip. But sometimes discretion is the better part of valor. Trump also needs to grasp, as hard as this may be for him to grasp, that the Ukraine war is not about him.
I say put the money toward the debt. However, I think Trump has said this – Haah-vahd’s money going to trade schools to get the “elite” wound up.
“Dear me…! OUR money being taken, all to be spent on (sniff) those people!”
“Those people” who repair your car, fix your plumbing, remodel your home, and make the air conditioning work for you in July.
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Those are the ones!
Hit the wrong button. Trump said Putin has gone absolutely crazy. It’s a stupid thing to say. Trump has no understanding of what’s going on between Ukraine and Russia, none. He is an absolute historical illiterate. If you told me he never read a book in his life, I’d believe you.
Yes, he’s done much good, or at least pushed the needle in the right direction. His tiff with Harvard is absurd. The very idea of taking money supposedly slated for Harvard and giving it to some other entity is idiotic. The big problem, the giant problem, is government meddling in our schools. Get government the hell out! Not one dime to Harvard. Or anywhere else. I’m starting to lose faith.
The BBB is mostly an abomination, or so it seems. I’m beginning to think Trump has no intention of cutting government spending. The BBB adds trillions to the debt. Or am I missing something?
Trump has good instincts. But he lacks understanding. I’m not sure instincts in a man without a moral center get us anywhere.
he is faltering to the left and becoming the opposite of why we elected him
to NOTTTT BE A POLITICIAN
now is the time to actually shut down government involvement in all these things they dont belong
so that when the rino/lefty start them up again the people can see what an atrocity it is to society
stay the f out!!! of the school funding business
I am torn between the Better Business Bureau or Build Back Better. What other BBB are you talking about?
Big Beautiful Bill. (Not the male stripper down at Chip n Dale’s.)
Serious question — why do apprenticeships need a government (in other words taxpayer) subsidy?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for yanking every thin (taxpayer) dime from flagrantly discriminatory institutions of ‘higher learning’ such as Harvard. And I very much support education in ‘the trades’ (along with every other occupation that can’t be outsourced to India and/or AI). I just don’t see any rationale here for why this can’t be left entirely to the private sector.
Because some classroom instruction provides the basis for OJT. With that in mind, I don’t see how it would be a waste.
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That is a great idea and I think would be popular with young people including those who didn’t vote for Trump or he “oppose” him. More young people are looking into trades and skilled labor and this would help fund and fuel that trend.
Then you spend your money on it and let me get mine back.
I know a kid who took welding at a community college and now at 25 yrs old is well on his way towards 6 figures in income. Tons of stories out there like it.
How about the federal government return to being “federal” and constitutional and NOT GIVE MY MONEY TO ANYONE in some sort of welfare program. (Because, grants or not, it IS welfare.)
No more federal tax receipts to any educational institution OF ANY KIND. Period.
While I appreciate the jab at Harvard, I don’t think this is a good idea. The modern university system is so twisted now due in a large part to the flood of federal money shoveled into that system via federally backed student loans. Dumping billions of dollars into trade schools is just continuing the same stupid practice in a different location.
I like the idea of trade schools and I do not want them to go down the path of the universities.
When you see O-Cedar-wigged trannies monopolizing trade school openings, you’ll know you’re back in trouble.
Oh, wait…