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Last month, President Donald Trump publicly floated the idea of redirecting grant money from our University to trade schools. Maybe Harvard should beat him to it.

Harvard’s graduate schools have produced research advocating for the revitalization of industries like manufacturing, and other elite universities have piloted trades-focused programs. Yet Harvard hasn’t put many of the findings of that research into practice, nor has it looked to peer institutions’ programs as major models. Greater investment in vocational education would not only provide local community members with opportunities, it would also demonstrate commitment to Harvard’s own research findings.

Mistrust in higher education has reached alarming levels: Almost 40 percent of voters have little to no trust in public universities, and that figure is even lower for Ivy League universities. No wonder defunding higher education is also gaining political traction: 51 percent of Republican voters support Trump’s funding freezes, according to one recent survey. This perspective is not completely inconceivable when 80 percent of postsecondary education funding goes to traditional four-year degrees pursued by fewer than 40 percent of American students.

If Harvard wants to both genuinely improve the lives of Americans and improve its public perception, it should back its purported belief in vocational education and workforce development with investment.

Harvard started some of this work last year with a joint project between the Kennedy School’s Project on Workforce and the national nonprofit Education Design Lab, which focuses on supporting community colleges via labor market data analysis and designing best practices. This research is unquestionably valuable, however it focuses mostly on developing guidance for future programs — a very “Harvard” approach to career development — rather than directly funding the expansion of community colleges’ existing programs or creating Harvard’s own workforce development programs.

To its credit, Harvard has invested in a “Careers in Construction” program, which provides training, paid apprenticeship positions, and mentorship. However, these resources are specific to the construction industry, where training often occurs on the job and trades education is not always required. Harvard could and should expand this program to other skilled trades like electricians and plumbers, for whom trade school is typically necessary.

Harvard already reportedly considered committing $500 million to workforce development initiatives in order to strike a deal with the Trump administration. Regardless of the status of negotiations, those initiatives have merit. The University should direct funding to these vocational programs, rather than just publishing research on the topic.

One model solution is Princeton University’s apprenticeship program at their Plasma Physics Laboratory, which teaches skilled trades such as welding, HVAC, and IT. This program demonstrates the potential for direct integration of trade work in extremely advanced laboratories. Similarly, the University of Chicago’s School of Medicine partnered with City Colleges of Chicago to fund jobs in healthcare and create Chicago's first clinical lab technician program.

Harvard could also strengthen investment in career and technical education for younger students. Though Harvard offers programs that support high schoolers in applying to four-year colleges, gaining experience with college coursework, and working on Harvard’s campus, the only apparent trades-related program on its “College and Career Awareness” page is a “College and Career Resource Fair,” which teaches highschoolers about technical training programs as well as post-secondary schools.

To expand its impact, Harvard could set up programs like Princeton’s or UChicago’s, create expanded programs for high schoolers that directly focus on career and technical education (ideally in partnership with an organization that is more experienced in this area), or even establish a fund to directly support vocational training. Harvard could also establish a commitment to accept a certain number of transfer students from community colleges, which would, at the very least, show support for non-traditional pathways to a four-year education.

Now more than ever, Harvard is struggling to recast itself as serving the needs of the broader American population. While funding new programs may not be feasible under Harvard’s current constraints, in the long-term, it should consider how it can support a more diverse range of forms of education.

After all, a college education isn’t the only valuable education.

Mukta R. Dharmapurikar ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a double concentrator in Environmental Science and Engineering and Economics in Lowell House.