When President Biden told a crowd of trade unionists this year that “every American should be given a path to a good career, whether they go to college or not,” Tyler Wisman was on ear. was tilting.
Wisman, a high school-educated father of one, said he rarely heard politicians say they should be able to get ahead without a college degree.
“For my 31 years, it was always like, ‘If you want a job, you have to go to college,'” Wisman said. Wissmann is training as an apprentice at the Finishing Trade Association in Philadelphia, where the president spoke in March.
Biden is seeking re-election to close the education gap that is reshaping America’s political landscape. Both parties portray education as important to promotion and opportunity, but college-educated voters are now more likely to support Democrats, while college-educated voters are more likely to support Republicans.
For Biden, who is trying to expand the coalition of voters who sent him to the White House in the first place, this increasingly clear split has huge implications. In 2020, Biden won 61% of college graduates, but only 45% of voters without a four-year college degree and only 33% of white voters without a four-year college degree. .
Former President Barack Obama’s top adviser David Axelrod said, “The Democrats have become a college-educated, international party despite calling themselves the party of the workers.” rice field.
Axelrod said the perception that Wall Street was bailed out during the 2008 recession while the middle class struggled deepened the rift between Democrats and uneducated blue-collar workers. added.
The election of Donald J. Trump, who used many of those grievances for political gain, cemented this trend.
“Not only among white working-class voters, but among working-class voters, the party is irrelevant to them, or they are either hand workers or back workers or so. There’s a sense of contempt for people who do things they don’t. We need a college education,” Axelrod said.
Now, in speeches across the country, Mr. Biden has said little about his flagship bill, the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, and how it will lead to trade training and eventual union employment.
Addressing the school’s apprenticeship program at the Trade Institute, Biden said, “Whether you go to college or not, we offer all Americans a path to a good career, just like the one you started here. let’s do it,’ he said.
The White House believes that an apprenticeship system, which typically combines classroom learning with paid work experience, will overcome a tight labor market and generate enough labor to turn the president’s vast spending plans into roads and bridges. It is extremely important to ensure And an electric car charger.
Biden has provided incentives to create apprenticeships and has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants to states to expand such programs.
“Biden is the first president since World War II to reduce the need for a college degree,” said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley.
Biden’s approach is a shift from previous Democratic administrations, which have placed far more emphasis on college as a path to higher salaries and promotions. At his first joint session of Congress, Obama said the United States “must again have the highest percentage of college graduates in the world.”
Obama’s wife, Michelle Obama, launched a campaign to encourage Americans to go to college, and at one point said life without higher education was like watching a painting dry, in a satirical video. suggested.
Democrats have long been cautious on this issue. Biden is an advocate for higher education, especially community colleges, and one of his most ambitious proposals as president is to reduce student loan debt of up to $20,000 for individuals earning $125,000 or less a year. It was a $400 billion program of exemptions. Republicans have painted the proposal as a perk for the elite.
The president’s infrastructure coordinator, Mitch Landrieu, said Biden always believed colleges were important, but that they were “absolutely not the only way to build the economy.”
Of those without a college degree, Landrieu said, “He sees men and women like that for a long time.” “They have always been part of the Democratic Party. Only recently has that changed.”
This shift is consistent with harsh political realities.
According to Doug, the battleground states that voted for the winning candidate in both 2016 and 2020 are roughly in the middle in terms of tertiary education levels, which is an indication that Biden’s efforts to appeal to people without a degree are expected in 2024. Sosnick is a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton.
“We need to try to mitigate losses for non-college voters while at the same time taking advantage of states with more educated voters,” Sosnik said. “You can’t just rely on the diploma gap to win. But it’s part of the formula.”
Similar movements are spreading across the country.
Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro unveiled campaign ads focused on expanding apprenticeships and removing college diploma requirements from thousands of state government jobs. This was a promise he made when he took office. Republicans in Maryland, Alaska, and Utah have also eliminated similar degree requirements.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, said he wanted to not only address the prejudice against people who don’t go to college, but also to assuage employers who are increasingly worried about chronic labor shortages.
“You can’t do any of this without a workforce,” Cox said.
Air Force veteran Christopher Montague, 29, from suburban Philadelphia, was trained as a drywall apprentice without going to college, but politicians have been “awakened” about the upsides of pursuing vocational training. “I realized I was doing it,” he said.
“Working with your hands makes money,” he said.
At the Finishing Trade Institute in Philadelphia, instructors say they are noticing an increase in demand. Drew Heberly, an industrial painting instructor, said a “good year” typically had 10 apprentices working on a construction project.
He has already sent nearly 40 apprentices this year to work on a Philadelphia project funded in part by Mr. Biden’s infrastructure policies.
“We are clearly seeing headcount growth and need,” said Heberly.
According to Tureka Dixon, recruitment coordinator for the Finishing Trades Institute, the idea of getting a trade education while earning money from a project is growing among high school students. Community colleges in the area are asking if they can form joint partnerships to train students on trade.
“Whether it’s cranes, skyscrapers or bridges, it’s trade work,” Dixon said as apprentices in helmets listened to a lead removal class. “It’s manual labor. I think people need to consider it more because that’s this country.”
Mark Smith, a 30-year-old apprentice at the institute, said that for him, learning a trade wasn’t a step backwards, but rather a career he wanted.
“School wasn’t for me,” says Smith. “I served in the Marine Corps and started this job soon after. To me it was a waste of money.”
Wissmann, who has never voted in a presidential election and identifies as an independent, said he did not yet know whether approval from the White House would ultimately motivate him to vote in the 2024 election.
“I want anyone who can help put food on the table,” Wisman, whose girlfriend is expecting their second child, said. “At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.”