Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Newsmax TV on Thursday that the nation's strong economic growth under a Trump administration is seriously threatened by an unprepared American workforce.
"The truth is our high schools are not properly equipping people for the jobs in the new-technology world," Ross told economist and moderator Larry Kudlow in an exclusive interview on the "Newsmax in the Nation's Capital" special sponsored by Newsmax and Google.
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"It's driven big corporations to where they have to pay local community colleges to do programs to teach people about computers, about welding, about all kinds of things."
Kudlow's interview with Ross will re-air on Newsmax TV, as well on DirecTV 349, FiOS 615 and U-Verse 1220 — and other outlets. More Info Here.
It will be broadcast again on Thursday at 10 p.m., on Saturday at 1 p.m. and on Sunday at 10 a.m., all times Eastern.
Ross, who is working with Ivanka Trump on the administration's Workforce of the Future efforts, praised efforts by the local colleges.
"But with all the money we're spending on education, we're not spending it on what used to be called vocational training," he said.
The U.S. had the least vocational training of any of the world's 35 developed countries, the secretary noted.
"The least. That's ridiculous."
Ross blamed it on the "social opprobrium that has come if you don't go to college.
"Pushing kids into college when they're not right for it ends up is tragedies," he told Kudlow, "because the one-third of all people entering college don't have a degree even six years later.
"But you know what they do have? $50,000 in accumulated student loans.
"What a terrible thing to make people think that they can do something that they shouldn't be doing — and then saddle them with debt as a penalty.
"It's horrible."