Representing the Working Class

A former Labor Department official on what to watch with workforce policy, including lessons for states and how to reframe what apprenticeships really are. Also, an essay on Colorado’s example for aligning education with the workforce, and new research on social capital and AI—will the tech narrow or widen inequality?

Alternate Paths to Good Jobs

What’s next for workforce education at the federal level is anybody’s guess. As the Trump administration settles in amid a Republican-controlled Washington, big questions loom about the fate of industrial policy spending, possible legislation on AI and jobs, MAGA’s take on automation and unions, the primary federal workforce system, and whether apprenticeship could finally take off.

To get a sense of what to watch over the next few months, we spoke with John Pallasch, a consultant who served as assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor during the first Trump administration.

Pallasch doesn’t speak for the Labor Department or for the Trump administration. He says his comments reflect experiences he had running Kentucky's workforce agency under former governor Matt Bevin and during his time at the department’s Employment and Training Administration during the first Trump administration.

The Trump Republican Party should lean into policies that back workforce training for lower-income Americans, says Pallasch.

“How do we help the working-class folks that this administration purports to want to represent now?” he says. “How do we really create those pathways for folks to get into the workforce rather than getting a traditional four-year degree?”

In addition to CTE and adult education, Pallasch says apprenticeship can be an alternative pathway to good careers. But a fundamental misunderstanding helps prevent apprenticeships from becoming a real thing in this country.

“Employers think of it as some sort of limbo land as opposed to subsidized career-path job training,” he says.

Companies are hiring these workers anyway. But an apprenticeship gives them a better career ladder and more certainty about what comes next. And employers can tap money from the feds or states to cover classroom training costs, while getting workers who stick around longer and are better at their jobs.

“Wouldn't it be better to hire them with a little bit of help from the government—with a better path forward for you and them?” says Pallasch.

Playbook for States: A push to reauthorize the law overseeing the primary federal workforce system fell short last year. And it’s unclear if the new Congress will take up the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act anytime soon.

In the meantime, Pallasch says, state and local policymakers should look at the recent bill to see if they can start adopting some of its key provisions, like a requirement that 50% of WIOA grant funding goes toward training. That sort of piecemeal approach could work at the federal level as well.

“When the bill passes, you're already ahead of the game,” he says. “There are things governors can do now. They often lack the political will to do it.”

Arkansas is making smart moves on technology and data sharing, says Pallasch. Florida is pursuing similar improvements. And he says both Indiana and Colorado are headed in the right direction on workforce policy, despite being politically different states.

Colorado governor Jared Polis offers a compelling vision for reshaping America’s workforce, writes Alison Griffin, a Colorado-based writer and university trustee who early in her career served on the Hill as a Republican committee staffer.

As the new chair of the National Governors Association, Polis has drawn from successful projects in Colorado to craft a plan for the national stage on how to align postsecondary education with the evolving needs of the workforce.

“By breaking down barriers between academia and industry, emphasizing practical skills alongside theoretical knowledge, and creating more flexible pathways to career success, his agenda offers a blueprint for building a more dynamic and inclusive economy,” Griffin writes in an essay for Work Shift.

At the federal level, Pallasch says, higher education can coexist with alternative paths to good jobs.

“We don’t have to steer people away from degrees,” he says. “But how do we create other pathways that are much more equitable, if we want to use that popular term?”

It’s currently unclear who might be a champion for that work in Washington. But Pallasch says he hopes somebody takes on the challenge.

The Kicker: “It fits with the ethos now of representing the working class and the frontline workers. That’s how you engage them. That’s how you get them to not be frontline workers, but to move up into middle management and upper-level positions, by creating that pathway that doesn’t require degrees,” says Pallasch.

Click over to Work Shift for the Q&A with John Pallasch and Alison Griffin’s essay.

Social Capital in the Age of AI

Over the past decade, higher education has come to more fully acknowledge that education alone isn’t enough to unlock a good job and longer-term opportunity. Whom a student knows often matters just as much as what they know.

Julie Freeland Fisher, director of education at the Clayton Christensen Institute, is one of the leading researchers driving the conversation around social capital and economic opportunity. She wrote the book on it. And she’s troubled by the direction we may be heading with AI, as she lays out in an essay this week for Work Shift.

For a new report, “Navigation and Guidance in the Age of AI,” Fisher and co-researcher Anna Arsenault interviewed leaders and advisers at 30 tech companies and hybrid advising organizations to understand the ways bots are being built to provide students with more on-demand information and guidance. 

Those interviews uncovered an “unspoken tension” in the market: Will AI be built to scale access to human help or simply to help more students help themselves? How the market ultimately answers that question will have a big impact on whether AI tools narrow or widen inequality, Fisher says.

“AI could be a game-changer in democratizing access to college and career guidance,” she writes. But if bots weaken students’ human connections in the process, they “could inadvertently chip away at the very opportunities they’re being engineered to unlock.” 

Fisher’s full thoughts are well worth a read. —By Elyse Ashburn

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Open Tabs

Clean Energy Funds
The Trump administration ordered federal agencies to pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes roughly $400B in grants and tax incentives for projects related to electric vehicles and clean electricity and transmission, some of which key Republicans have backed. President Trump’s executive order specifically called for the elimination of EV tax credits and funds for EV charging stations.

Data Center Jobs
The Stargate Project from SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX seeks to invest $500B over four years on computing infrastructure to power AI. The joint venture will begin with 10 data centers that are under construction in Texas. OpenAI said the project will create hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs. The Trump administration pledged to remove barriers for the creation of data centers and to allow Stargate to generate its own electricity.

Job Shifts
Professionals entering the workforce today are on pace to hold twice as many jobs over their careers compared to 15 years ago, finds a report from LinkedIn. Fully 20% of workers in the U.S. have job titles that didn’t exist in 2020. Since 2022, LinkedIn has seen a 140% increase in the pace at which its users add new skills to their profiles. Communication was the top in-demand skill in 2024, the company found.

College Enrollment
U.S. postsecondary enrollment topped pre-pandemic levels last fall, according to the latest estimates from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Undergraduate numbers increased across sectors, growing the most at community colleges, which were up by 325K students (6%). Certificate program enrollment grew for the fourth consecutive year and was roughly 29% above 2019 levels.

Education Benefits
Guild announced a global expansion and will bring its education benefits model to Canada, Mexico, India, and the U.K. The company said the move allows its employer partners to support both their domestic and international workforces. Guild also rolled out expanded course offerings in Spanish through Aprende Institute and a new suite of courses on manufacturing essentials from Purdue University Global.

Toolbelt Generation
Community colleges are reporting a shift among Gen Z students toward career education, technical training, and trade-based pathways, reports Jim Paterson for Community College Daily. For example, Warren County Community College in New Jersey has seen growing interest in medical careers and its unmanned systems program, with students increasingly seeking out tech roles that may only require an associate degree or certificate.

Job Moves
Keith Witham has been named president and CEO of Ascendium Education Group, a nonprofit focused on learners from lower-income backgrounds. Witham, who has led Ascendium’s education philanthropy, previously was a managing director at the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program.

Maria Toyoda has been named president and CEO of the WASC Senior College and University Commission, an institutional accreditor. Toyoda is chief academic officer of Western New England University. She will replace Jamienne Studley, who stepped down last month.

Hope you’re staying warm as winter flexes across much of the country—it got below zero this week here in Columbus, Ohio. To support our work, donate here. —PF