Senator Marshall: Community & Tech Colleges are the Bright Star of Education in Kansas

Senator Marshall Questions Witnesses at Senate HELP hearing

Washington – On Wednesday, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), questioned witnesses, including Josh Laney from the Competency-Based Education Network, Latitia McCane, Ph.D. from Newport News Shipbuilding, Gardner Carrick from the Manufacturing Institute, John Downey from the International Union of Operating Engineers, and Brent Booker from the Laborers’ International Union of North America during the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions hearing focused on registered apprenticeships and scaling the workforce for the future.

Click HERE or on the image above to watch Senator Marshall’s full exchange.

Highlights from the hearing include:

On how federal funding programs are supporting registered apprenticeships:

Senator Marshall: “Mr. Chairman, I just want to agree with you that I’m so proud of what we did in the big, beautiful bill that we protected, we persevered Medicaid dollars for nursing homes. That’s exactly what they’re meant to do, and that’s exactly what we did in that bill, not to mention that we got rid of the nurse mandate as well to help protect our nursing homes. But anyway, Mr. Chairman, have I ever mentioned that I graduated from a community college? My wife graduated from a community college once or twice. Okay, I want to make sure. I’m just so proud of the work that community colleges and tech colleges are doing in Kansas. They’re absolutely the bright star of education in Kansas. As a matter of fact, they’ve been working to better align the registered apprentice system with higher education institutions, including implementing pathways that employers design for high-wage, high-demand occupations. We’re also creating pathways for union apprentices to earn associate bachelor’s degrees. Nearly all our community and tech colleges are acting as group sponsors, providing strong support for employers to start new registered apprentice programs. I’ll have the same question for Mr. Laney, Dr McCane, and Mr. Carrick. How do you see Perkins, CTE, and other federal funding initiatives supporting these efforts, maybe kind of briefly, one minute each, or 30 seconds each?”

Mr. Laney: “Yes, sir, Perkins is a very easy fit, and I heard mention of 18 year olds working in manufacturing, but you can be a registered apprentice at 16, and that’s where I think a lot of that overlap occurs, is where we start our high school students in youth apprenticeship programs, which is still needs to be a registered apprenticeship with all the same training requirements and safety and all of that. But there’s no reason to wait until they are out of school. People have a tendency to continue doing what they’ve started doing. And so, if we can get these students engaged in work-based learning while they’re in school, then we’ll keep them in there.”

Dr. McCane: “Ithink the Perkins funds can be used for infrastructure purposes on college, community college campuses, especially the equipment that’s needed. There’s a lot of technology. Now we build ships for the Navy, so there’s a lot of technology. And because of the technology changes, we need more of that infrastructure within the community colleges, so we can use our Perkins funds for that. We also need Pell grants for students to be able to pay for the related technical instruction, the tuition to be able to do that, as well as when you think about the on-the-job training, some of that Perkins fund, some of those dollars can be used for the on-the-job training as well. So, I think it’s very important that we have all these braid these dollars together to be able to use it to be able to help not only with infrastructure, but with the students as well.”

Mr. Kerik: “I would reiterate, the infrastructure at the community college. The average manufacturing lab at community college probably has over a million dollars of equipment in it, right? So being able to outfit that with the latest technology to ensure that we’re staying current with the skill requirements would be the top priority.”

Senator Marshall: “Yeah, all over, whether it’s the nursing programs or learning to run big equipment, today’s HVAC systems were not my grandfather’s HVAC systems. Welding in today’s world is so much different than the shop class I took in my grandfather’s barn. It’s very technology-driven, and each high school can’t afford the investment, so these simply located tech colleges, community colleges, can make an investment, and all the high schools can use them. So, it’s working.”

On how unions are engaging with higher education:

Senator Marshall: “I’ll follow up with Mr. Downey and Mr. Booker. I’m also so proud of the union’s engagement across the state of Kansas and their own apprenticeships, and then using apprenticeships engaged with our community colleges and technical colleges. How are your unions engaging with higher education? Sure, your members can take full advantage of these pathways. Mr. Downey, you’re first, please.”

Mr. Downey: “Thank you. So, our ITAC is affiliated with the Houston Community College and accredited. We have outreach all throughout the country with many community college programs. We’ve even started our own programs where we can try to reach out to younger students, even at the high school level, so that we can capture their capture them at that level. We have a couple programs affiliated with community colleges in Missouri and in Kansas that have been wildly successful and have spread out from there.”

Mr. Booker: “I’d also like to focus first on the high school. You know, we have alerted our what we call is our is our Learn program, where we put in curriculum to learn the trades in high school settings. So that college isn’t for everybody. So those that want to continue into the trades they get into the registered apprenticeship through there. Once you’re in the registered apprenticeship, there’s a lot of our programs who partner, just like you described with a community college, that upon graduation of your apprenticeship, you’re also handed a two year associate’s degree from your local community college that will then set you up to either continue your you know, your skill set, applying your skill set, living the American dream and building our nation’s infrastructure, or continuing in higher education from there. But you got both of those while you earned, while you learned.”

Senator Marshall: “Yeah, I just want to brag one more time, the world champion welder is from Southeast Kansas Community College, world champion welder. Another one of their students, when he finished high school, had completed the welding program at that community college. His starting salary is over $100,000 a year. And guess what? It’s not in green new energies. He’s working on an oil pipeline, a gas pipeline as well. And if we had time, I’d love you to talk about the salaries of union workers on oil and gas projects, as opposed to some of the green energy jobs that you were talking about. But I’m out of time, and I’ll yield back to the chairman.”

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Contact: Payton Fuller