You'll Be Broke and Jobless Unless You Prep for Jobs That Don't Exist Yet

One of the major appeals for younger Americans underlying Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign slogan was creating job opportunities for them. However, if you really look at his jobs message, it was centered on reinvigorating employment in legacy industries, but are these the jobs of the future and are we providing the next generation of American workers the skills to compete in an ever evolving job marketplace?

Many jobs -- and even industries -- did not exist just two decades ago, and by some estimates, 65 percent of today's school children will be employed in jobs that don't exist right now. There are even estimates that up to 45 percent of current jobs will be significantly automated in the near future – think telemarketing, data entry, photographic processing, freight and cargo agents and even tax preparation.

So what policies can we advocate for and what can young Americans do to help prepare themselves to be employed in existing and currently undeveloped industries?

More young Americans are graduating from high school, but too many do not have the necessary skill sets to complete college or compete for higher paying jobs should they choose not continue their education past high school. College freshmen are taking remedial courses (for no graduation credit) to meet core requirements. That is money being drained from Pell grants or family college funds that will only get these students deeper in debt when and if they graduate.

Activists are calling for more rigorous standards at the high school level, and not just in terms of testing. They are calling for the increase in the quality of courses and college preparation classes across the spectrum (rural, urban and suburban) of our secondary education system. In addition, there is a call for needed certified industry apprenticeships for high school students who will not continue their formal education through college. That way they have the opportunity to gain functional training certificates to get a good paying job.

A recent piece in the New York Times addressing human behavior spoke to how the human mind is mainly drawn to the future, not driven by the past. We learn by retouching memories and using them to imagine future possibilities. We've all repeated, quietly to ourselves, some variation of the phrase: "Will I ever use this in real life?" It's essential our institutions of higher learning have an answer to that question, or at least help students form the context of how knowledge gained will help them on their continued path in both their professional and personal lives.

In America, we talk of "continuing education," yet we must strive to truly provide an education system that creates a structure to take a student through high school and into college. Part of this is a lack of transparency and communication of existing data across our educational system. An old adage says all organizing begins locally, and there are a number of entry points where advocacy is crucial.

There is nothing more local than municipal school boards and PTAs, and every public and state college has an elected board of regents. But every community in America has a Chamber of Commerce and a Workforce Investment Board whose main role is to direct federal, state and local funding to workforce development programs.
Students and parents should advocate to all of those to ensure the following:

• High quality coursework to help prepare students meet college requirements.
• Systems where students and parents can track the progress of schools and individuals for the skills and courses needed for success post-secondary schooling.
• Better communication between high school and public college administrative officials to help identify pathways to augment the transition from high school to college. (It simply increases the chance for college success.)
• Develop certified training programs that create real apprenticeship opportunities within certified industries that guarantee a pathway to employment.
• A structure where local school and workforce investment boards can work together so that training program structures have a system to evaluate individual skill sets, guaranteeing that each student doesn't start from scratch.

Rome wasn't built in a day, but it was built through a thoughtful investment in infrastructure. We can all agree that there is no more important infrastructure investment than the success of the next generation of America's workforce.