President Trump to Outline Workforce Training Agenda

President Donald Trump will give a policy speech at the Labor Department next week outlining the administration’s worker-training initiatives, a senior White House adviser said Wednesday.

Mr. Trump will announce administrative steps to expand apprenticeship programs and accreditation for vocational programs and community colleges, said Reed Cordish, a top adviser on technology initiatives, during a panel discussion Wednesday at the Business Roundtable, a corporate trade group.

Mr. Cordish said the administration would also propose ways to expand student aid for vocational training and apprenticeship programs by curbing regulation. Mr. Trump’s June 14 speech will be followed the next day by a meeting with governors.

“This is our best opportunity to address the skills gap that exists in the country and to address the student debt crisis that exists in the country,” Mr. Cordish said. “Four-year college is wonderful, but it shouldn’t be the only option.”

Mr. Trump’s 2018 budget proposal last month would cut federal funding for work-study programs and eliminate funding for certain teacher-training initiatives as part of a 13.5% decrease next year in funding for the Education Department. It would also reduce funding nearly 40% for job-training programs administered by the Labor Department.

Mr. Cordish said the cuts reflected the need to better organize some 31 workforce-training programs across 14 federal agencies. “The problem is accountability and effectiveness,” he said.

Mr. Cordish also said expanding apprenticeship programs and accreditation for vocational programs could be a “bipartisan issue” for Congress. He said the policy agenda would be a priority for Vice President Mike Pence and Mr. Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, a senior adviser.

“We have to open up accreditation so if you go to a technical school, you go to a community college, and you get a degree, that has to be something that’s portable … just like a degree from a four-year university,” Mr. Cordish said.

Apprenticeships and other vocational training programs have been widely used in Germany and adopted in U.S. factories run by German manufacturers, including BMW AG ,Volkswagen AG and Siemens AG . They have received increased attention from U.S. business groups in recent years amid rising complaints over shortages of skilled workers.

The Obama administration also promoted increased funding for apprenticeships as a part of a broader initiative to expand cost-free community college. Republican lawmakers said broadening community college access was an issue better left to state governments.

But the Obama administration took a much tougher approach to regulating hundreds of for-profit colleges following a spate of recruiting scandals. After Mr. Trump’s election last fall, shares of for-profit education companies rallied sharply on the hope that a more business-friendly Trump administration would take a largely hands-off approach to the industry.

Mr. Trump’s agenda to address worker retraining “does involve expanding student aid so that it can be applied to vocational training and apprenticeship education without too much regulation stopping it,” Mr. Cordish said Wednesday.