Trade schools set to gain from Trump, Ivy League disputes

Trade schools stand to receive significant funds from legal settlements between Ivy League universities and the Trump administration. 

What’s happening: President Trump wants Harvard University to put up $500 million to build its own vocational school as part of a legal settlement with his administration, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC on Thursday. (The parties are battling over school policies and frozen federal funding.)

• Earlier this year, in a similar settlement, Brown University agreed to award $50 million in grants to vocational schools and organizations across Rhode Island over the next 10 years. 

Why it matters: Lutnick predicted that Trump’s economic policies will prompt $10 trillion worth of new factories to be built in the U.S., with the first quarter of next year to become “the best quarter of construction jobs this country has ever seen.” 

• That amount of construction would require a robust workforce. “We need five million technically trained Americans to fill these jobs,” Lutnick said.  

The big picture: Since taking office, President Trump has promoted trade schools and apprenticeships — and launched an initiative dubbed “Make America Skilled Again,” aimed at bolstering the skilled trades. 

• However, his administration has cut funding for the Job Corps program, which offers HVAC training nationwide. 

Catch up quick: In April, the Trump administration demanded that Harvard stop considering race in its hiring and admissions processes, clamp down on anti-Semitism, and “audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity.” 

• When Harvard resisted, the administration froze $2.2 billion in federal grants. 
• Harvard filed a lawsuit alleging that the government had violated its First Amendment protections and ignored rules for revoking federal funding; however, over the summer, the New York Times reported that the school was considering settling for $500 million.
• A judge this month declared the funding freeze illegal, but the Trump administration is expected to appeal the decision.

What they’re saying: Lutnick on CNBC said each new plant or factory would need 3,000 workers — “technicians who fix the robots, who fix the HVAC system.” 

• “They got rid of shop class and made everybody go to a liberal arts college,” he added.
• “Those people are sitting on the sidelines. They just don’t want to be in the marketing department… They want to work with their hands. They want to do things outside. These people are going to come back to work.” 

What we’re watching: Lutnick’s comment about a new vocational school with Harvard’s name attached “evokes the prospect of Ivy League-credentialed plumbers and electricians,” Bloomberg reported. 

• Princeton University’s Plasma Physics Laboratory currently runs an apprenticeship program that offers HVAC training, while Harvard has an existing ‘Careers in Construction’ program, the news outlet added.