James B. Murray Jr. is a former rector of the boards of the University of Virginia and William & Mary. Meredith Woo, former dean of arts and sciences at the University of Virginia and former president of Sweet Briar College, is on the faculty at Arizona State University.
In mid-January, a stranger studying American higher education would have noticed contradictions in the system. One of the nation’s premier research universities, the University of Virginia, was embroiled in a divisive struggle over diversity, equity and inclusion policies. Meanwhile, senior leaders at Arizona State University were quietly hosting 30 leaders from Korean technical colleges to discuss how the United States might learn from their success in developing an AI-ready workforce.
The visitor might well have asked, which university was best serving its purpose?
The U.S. remains the global leader in developing artificial intelligence, software innovations, scalable nuclear power, drug development and much of the technology required to address humanity’s needs in the coming decades. Yet even as it attracts record foreign investment, including tariff-related commitments from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan totaling $1.4 trillion, a stark reality looms: The country lacks the workforce capable of understanding and operating these innovations.
Our universities have fallen behind in educating a sophisticated workforce. Constrained by an obsolete academic model and caught up in the culture wars, too many universities have lost sight of their core task: educating young people for tomorrow’s work.
Over the next seven years, as many as 3.8 million manufacturing positions will open in the U.S., and more than half will go unfilled. Hundreds of thousands more will be needed in robotics, tech-driven health care, software development, autonomous machinery and jobs that educators have yet to imagine. Without concerted action on workforce development, the U.S. lead will be lost in China’s dust.
The challenge extends beyond simple headcount. Today’s workplaces increasingly rely on artificial intelligence, AI-directed robotics, genomics, nanoscale instrumentation, 3D printing and interconnected sensor networks that generate torrents of real-time data. While futurists tout fully automated “dark factories” that operate without human oversight, the reality is more nuanced.
Small and medium-sized manufacturers, start-up laboratories, venture-funded software developers and new medical research facilities — the backbones of American industry — will still require skilled technicians. In fact, these future businesses will demand what might be called “super-technicians”: workers who understand AI systems, interpret predictive-maintenance algorithms, analyze sensor data, program and repair robots, anticipate problems and troubleshoot intelligent machines. These professionals will command AI rather than be replaced by it.
Americans can do this. The U.S. Army has pioneered rapid training programs to create “AI Technicians” who build applications and advance AI adoption, using intensive occupational education. The Navy increasingly treats advanced AI literacy as a core competency for its officers and future commanders. Yet the country’s civilian educational infrastructure lags dangerously behind, with very few schools teaching these skills to the civilian workforce.
America’s elite universities have superb engineering, computer science and medical programs that produce talented graduates. Yet even at the finest flagship schools, and certainly at the hundreds of other schools, too many of our most promising undergraduates remain in a cocoon of expensive dormitories, fluff curriculums, fraternity parties, overly solicitous faculty and isolation from the rigors of global competition.
Meanwhile, community colleges and vocational schools, traditionally the training ground for technical workers, are struggling to meet this moment. Advanced manufacturing tools, laboratory equipment and computing power are prohibitively expensive and require frequent replacement as technology evolves. Qualified instructors are scarce, as private-sector salaries far exceed what educational institutions can offer.
The U.S. needs a renewed commitment to practical curriculums, close cooperation between business and academia and vastly expanded opportunities for student internships and work experience. A restructured advanced education system must break down barriers among research universities, community and vocational colleges, and industry.
History shows that American higher education can rise to the challenge of transformation. The Morrill Act of 1862 established land-grant universities, democratizing higher education and making the U.S. a leader in technical education. The GI Bill enabled more than 2.2 million veterans to attend college and 5.5 million to pursue career training, fundamentally reshaping American society and creating an educated middle class. This effort succeeded by aligning educational resources with urgent national needs.
Today’s growing workforce crisis demands the same ambition and federal leadership. The U.S. needs a new national campaign to incentivize change in the higher education system. Workforce education grants, industry partnerships, federal and state tax incentives, immigration reform to attract the world’s brightest and new philanthropic regulations are needed to build the future’s technical workforce. Today’s partisan wrangling and cultural posturing must give way to a renewed focus on the needs of a civilized society.
The question before the country is simple: Will American universities continue to prioritize institutional prestige over national purpose, or will they recognize that the nation’s future may depend on their willingness to collaborate?
Silicon Valley venture capitalists are investing record sums in new ideas, hyper-scale data centers are under construction, and new science labs are proliferating. Entrepreneurs are already building the industries of tomorrow.
Meanwhile, some 3.9 million American students will graduate from high school this spring. Four years from now, how many of them will be qualified to take one of the new jobs this tech boom is creating?
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