Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Higher Education And Workforce topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Vice President Vance: universities must reform, community colleges and unions should lead reskilling
Summary
Speaking at an American Compass event, Vice President JD Vance urged elite universities to reform hiring and research practices, and said community colleges, unions and industry should play central roles in rebuilding the skilled workforce needed for reshoring manufacturing.
Vice President JD Vance criticized elite universities' current practices and urged a broader approach to workforce training to support onshoring and industrial renewal.
"Why don't you just follow the civil rights laws of the country? Like, that's a very easy thing to do," Vance said, arguing universities must comply with nondiscrimination laws and improve scientific reproducibility. He added that many four-year universities are not the institutions that will provide skilled-crafts training; instead, he said, community colleges, unions and industry will have primary roles.
Vance said universities should produce the research and talent underpinning advanced industries while ensuring that scientific practices are reliable. "What I don't need out of Harvard is for the science to be so broken that 80% of the biology papers produced don't actually replicate," he said.
On workforce development, Vance stressed that offshoring had eroded domestic craft skills and that restoring those skills would require targeted training investments. "When you atrophy critical skills in the economy, it's not easy just to flip that switch back on," he said, calling the loss of skilled trades an element of the broader industrial decline.
He framed higher-education reform as part of a national compact: elite institutions benefit from public subsidies and should meet obligations tied to that support, he said. Vance also called for greater ideological diversity and openness to inquiry in the academy to improve scientific quality and public trust.
On advice for younger policy professionals present at the event, Vance urged them to get out into communities affected by policy, test ideas against real-world conditions and not be deterred by credential gatekeeping in Washington. "Get out there and do your duty with optimism and hope and a recognition that you're lucky to get to have the life that you do," he said.
The remarks were delivered at an American Compass gathering; no formal university policy actions were announced at the event.
