Everything that they touch, everything that they do every single day, is
related to preparing them for that job. So when students get to industry, they
are ready to hit the ground running. These are students in a technical
college learning to work on electric vehicles or with other advanced
machinery for free. It's a blueprint for what education in
America might need to look like on a much broader scale to meet the country's
demand for skilled workers. As billions of dollars flow into the
production of electric vehicles, clean energy and semiconductor chips.
This is the Smyrna campus of the Tennessee College of Applied Technology,
or Tecate, where classrooms look like autobody workshops and assembly plants.
In 2014, the state made its community colleges and technical schools like the
TI Cats, tuition free for high school graduates and soon after for older
adults. The T cat system has some 34,000
students and more than two dozen separate schools.
My favorite part of t get with hands down be the hands on training.
You're basically faced with the same problems and situations that I'm going
to be faced with in the workforce. Pretty much learning it from the
beginning to the end. Soon as I brought it in, I watched it.
I'm looking at it and I got a plan of attack disassembled and started to
repair. And tomorrow I will be trying to prom
and get it ready for paint. And that we sent home on the third day.
With electric vehicles at the heart of the most ambitious U.S.
industrial policy since World War Two. With over $100 billion being invested
into the country's electric car industry.
These may just be the kind of classrooms that America is going to need to sort
its countrywide worker shortage. We were one of the first higher
education institutions in middle Tennessee to start offering
apprenticeship programs. We offer an electrician, an
apprenticeship program, an usher, electrical maintenance, machine tool,
mechatronics. And we're always looking to add new
apprenticeship programs. And really, that's just driven by the
industry, whatever they need. Tennessee's early investment in
technical education put it ahead of the curve and it seems to be paying off.
More than $16 billion in capital has poured into the state since 2017.
And last year Ford broke ground on a giant new plant near Memphis that's
slated to open in 2025 and churn out half a million electric trucks per year.
But even with this Head Start, the key problem of having enough skilled workers
to fill these jobs remains. The shortfall is particularly acute when
comparing the U.S. to countries like Germany that have long
invested in technical training to boost industry at home.
Germany, they do it really well, you know, to where they direct their path
early, whether it be technical or university path.
So that's one thing that Tennessee is really doing a good job with.
But of course, you know, we need more to catch students.
We need more students that are available and ready to come into jobs.
So we are all challenged as institutions in colleges across the state to make
sure that we can increase our pipeline, we can increase our enrollment so that
way we can meet the demand of industry. This campus in Smyrna opened in 2017 in
partnership with Nissan, which makes Leaf electric cars nearby.
Company trainees and traditional students split their time between
lectures and the shop with programs tailored to specific industry needs.
And while free tuition is not the same as free college, given, students still
face a variety of other costs associated with school, such as housing.
It's a desirable alternative for those seeking to avoid taking on a lot of
student debt. We're doing exactly what the company
needs and nothing else. There is no fluff.
Everything can be customized to whatever the company needs it to be.
When I started thinking about my day job 6 hours a class, I said, You know what?
I can do it. My daily work is a machine operator.
I had to step out of class for a short period of time.
And so when I came back, they had taken care of financial aid paperwork for me.
They taking care of enrollment for me. So for someone to believe in you, it
just boost your confidence level so, so much.
The battle is finding enough students who are interested.
Tennessee's labor force participation rate is in the bottom ten of U.S.
states, and manufacturing now accounts for just 8% of the U.S.
workforce. Half of what it was at the start of the
1990s. Something we don't want people to think
that you come here if you're not good enough to go to college because the
worked in the jobs that these guys are doing once they complete here, you have
to be good enough in order to make our society run.
So it's very important that we spread the news of technical education into the
high schools, into the middle school, so they know exactly what's out there for
them as an option. In Rutherford County, where the Nissan
plant is located. Almost half of high school students are
neither moving on to further education nor entering the workforce, according to
a school official. After years of U.S.
manufacturing shifting overseas, officials are trying to convince
Tennesseans that a steady, good paying job awaits on the other side of a
technical college degree. It pretty much gives me the options of
doing anything in the body shop, which makes me more valuable and more money.
My professional goal is to find a career that is going to allow me to grow with
that company. I want to be able to know more about the
mechanics and then, of course, move up the ladder.