Deciding what to do after high school used to feel like a one-way street leading straight to a four-year university.
Today, however, the rising cost of tuition and a shifting labor market have reopened the debate between the traditional college path and specialized trade schools.
And now, the rise of artificial intelligence has added a complex layer to this age-old debate
While a four-year degree focuses on critical thinking, and trade schools emphasize essential manual expertise, the rapid advancement of AI now threatens to automate roles in both sectors.
Join All Sides as we untangle the college vs. trade school vs. AI debate.
Guests:
- Jeff Strohl, research professor and director, Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce
- Stephanie Hightower, president & CEO, Columbus Urban League
- Kevin Fox, founder, Foxwerx Group
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review its audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to "Untangled" from All Sides in WOSU Public Media. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Across the country and here in central Ohio, work is changing fast, creating new opportunities and real questions for workers, families, and employers navigating a complex moment.
This is "Untangled," a show where we take a complicated topic and untangle it for you. Explain it in a way that's easier to understand. This season, we are tackling work. For decades, research has shown that having a bachelor's degree will lead to better employment prospects.
But in an age where artificial intelligence is creating instability in white collar workplaces, there is a shift in that go to college to get a job mentality. And then there's that trade school versus college debate which also dovetails into a conversation about underemployment among college graduates.
To help us figure out whether all that talk of a four-year degree is worth it, we have Jeff Strohl, research professor and director of Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce. Welcome to the show, Professor Strohl.
Jeff Strohl: Thank you for having me.
Juravich: So let's start with this recent study that your center did. You were trying to answer the question, how many college graduates are underemployed? Meaning workers possess more education or skills than the job requires. But you actually found out that this is really hard to measure, right? Isn't that what you discovered?
Strohl: Yeah, absolutely. If you take a look at the research, the data actually goes from where the results go from 52 percent of recent college graduates not using their skills on their job to around 26 when you enter the labor market.
And it's a wide range. And so a lot of the problems that we have is really identifying both the skills that somebody has as well as the tasks that are needed on the job. And, so bringing those two pieces of information together is a difficult measurement.
And what we're calling for really in our work is that a federal agency needs to pull together all these different measures and get down to really trying to understand this better because we're sending a bad message to people that it isn't worth it because basically if you believe 52% you might as well just shut down the post-secondary education system because we have too many people and they're
Juravich: Yeah. And it also matters the age of the person. Like, you know, someone who is underemployed at age 22 means something completely different than someone underememployed at 44.
Strohl: Yeah, absolutely. And so, in all of the work that you look at on under-employment, they all have a declining rate of under- employment. And this really reflects how we do job matching in the U.S. Labor market.
What we do, we educate people, and then we basically dump them into the labor market and say, go swim. And, so, that go swim part makes it so in the US economy today, people have about 12.5 jobs across the life cycle.
In Europe, bits between 2 and 4. And so that ability to latch on to a career or a job is much more difficult in the US and it usually takes, I'm guessing, seven to 10 years of the first part of the career to fully land on something that you would call your career. I've had too many jobs to count myself.
Juravich: Alright, I got it. But and then there's also that stereotype of the barista with a diploma living in their parents basement All right. So if you ask a four-year college They're gonna tell you you know numbers that make it seem like that never happens, right?
There's no there's no baristas with bachelor's degrees But then you found out that some economists are probably just overestimating how often it happened So that's where you get that 50% plus number from so Do you think, just from your research, I know you said that we need to, like, figure this out better, but are there a lot of underemployed college graduates out there?
Strohl: I think it's really when you look, as you pointed out, on age and also when you look in the business cycle. So right now in the U.S. Economy, we're facing lots of economic headwinds, we are facing lots of uncertainty and employers from tariffs. And let's even forget about AI right now, in this conversation.
We just have enough that the labor market has frozen. So we went through something like 10 million separations and hires a month in the US economy to about three. And so what this really reflects is employers... Are uncertain about hiring in, people don't want to change jobs to the next job, so it's frozen up that labor market.
So it's made potentially more people underemployed because you have to take what's in front of you, i.e. The barista job. You have to put dinner on the table. So we have to face that some people are going to be underememployed, but that can be for transitory reasons, that can for personal reasons, and it can be frankly that they just can't latch on to the right job. So. We're guesstimating that it probably drops to around maybe 17 to 20% over time when people latch on.
Juravich: All right, so 20%, that's a little more palatable than 50%. I think we can, you know, at least four-year colleges will like that number, right?
Strohl: Yes, that's right.
Juravich: This is "Untangled" from All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. And this show is a part of the WOSU Public Media Project Inside Reshaping Work.
We're talking about the use of college degrees in the working world with Jeff Stroll, research professor and director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. I wanted to pivot to those people in their early 20s for a minute.
This is the time of year when college graduates are all being asked, what's next? And they're expected to have this great answer of how they're using their brand new degree. What have you found out about the job market that they're entering right now?
Strohl: Oof, that's a hard one because the data is a little slow to come at us. So we have a lot of noise and storytelling. So right now, everybody wants us, or at least the tech bros, want us to believe that AI is causing a tsunami and destroying all jobs.
Or in fact, most of the impact that we can see from AI is really through investment sectorial shifts. Meta just made a big layoff. And that's what they said, that we need to shift money. So it's not really clear how it is going to impact on the workplace.
So that's one factor, is the fear factor that college graduates face. Secondly, is all the economic uncertainty. We went through reduction in force in the federal government. All these research grants got cut. And so all of a sudden, you have excess skilled labor in the labor market.
And then you've got three million or so graduates coming into the labor market in May. It's going to clog up. And so we did a report called the "Summer Surge," and we estimate that it takes about nine months for. The economy to absorb each of these cohorts of graduates. So it makes it difficult for those students.
And add on top of that, all the disruptions that's happened to professional jobs over the last year and a half. It even adds another layer. I think the RIF folks and stuff are slowly settling in. So I hope next cohort, it'll be good, but it's a tough lot out there.
And I think we have to balance. Stories of somebody with 100 resumes with the fact that, you know, unemployment among college graduates, I think it's around five, six, something like that. So it's above the overall, but that's normal for youth.
Juravich: Yeah, and maybe give themselves a little grace of that nine months to find what they're looking for.
Strohl: Yes, exactly.
Juravich: Well, there's a lot of talk out there about going to trade school instead of a four-year degree. In producing this series that we're calling "Reshaping Work," I've heard a lot a talk from a lot of people about the need for electricians, skilled construction workers.
Everyone keeps talking about how we need more welders. Our country is really in need of more welder right now. Do you come from the mindset that the push for that four- year degree going to college needs to change at all? Is there room for pursuing both college and trade school in this world?
Strohl: Well, I'm glad you asked it in that way, because normally people ask this of one extreme or the other. And I think that you hit it right on the nose, which is we need to have a balanced approach to this.
I was dealing with some folks in Florida who were asking this question, trying to figure out skilled trades versus other and somebody was suggesting that high school graduates could just flood into skilled trades. I looked at the data, 4% of high school graduates are in skilled trades, they earn more when they do it.
But it's a very limited scope. So we have to think about how skilled trades grow. Skilled trades are really directly tied with population growth. We're having flattening population growth, you think about it, how many houses do you need for new people?
Well, if you have a slowdown in construction, well, then you have a slow down in the need for electricians. Our data projecting into 2032 suggested what we call this middle skills area. It's gonna stay fairly flat.
There's lots of opportunity there, But we have to. Weigh it out by how many jobs are we talking about for a high school class or for a generation to go into. So it does offer opportunity. I was a carpenter and plumber for about 10 or 12 years before I dropped out of college and went back.
Great opportunity, but it's difficult work. And if you look at linemen, linemen they age out about age 40 because their bodies go to heck. And if don't become a supervisor, that's it. So. We have to be thinking about the life cycle.
And also the last thing on skilled trades is people often look to fully matured journeymen or masters in the trade and look at their earnings and say all these apprenticeship programs are gonna lead automatically to that wage with actually the time it takes from starting and graduating an apprenticeship program to hitting peak wage.
It's a lot longer than people acknowledge. So let's just be honest on both things. Honest on college to your initial point. But also honest on the scope of opportunity in the skilled trades.
Juravich: No, you're not going to come out of high school as a master carpenter making as much as your boss. Yeah. Okay. So I had someone say to me recently in doing this series that what we need to do is kind of lessen this intense push on the four-year degree though.
But what needs to change is we need train parents differently. So when your kid comes home, yeah. So when you kid comes from school and says, hey, I want to be a welder. So that the parent says. That's great news, let's find you a program, rather than the immediate reaction being, no you're not, you're going to college. What are your thoughts on that mindset shift?
Strohl: I think that's an interesting perspective. We should actually encourage youth today, and I've got a 20-year-old trying to figure out what their passions are, to allow them to follow it while being honest about the amount of economic opportunity that exists in any of these given areas, because with only a high school degree, if you don't latch on to working in field, you're not going to make a lot of money.
So I think it can be a good thing, but what we have is a big problem in the United States is that we've under invested in counseling. So we've got all this great information, but what do we turn to? Some person closest to us.
And while many of our parents and friends might have good information, it's not complete information. And so it's only one perspective, and we need to do a better job to help students and those parents understand. The implications of what they're suggesting. So a welder. So if everybody becomes a weldor, guess what? You're gonna have a heck of a lot of unemployed people being welders.
So that scope, scale, and opportunity, what the work is like, people need that better information and we don't provide it. And so if we're just gonna turn to a parent, myself could fail, you could be wrong, anybody could be long. So we need more investment in our counseling apparatus.
Juravich: Your center, the Center for Education in the Workforce, released a study last fall related to skills shortages. So it said the U.S. Economy needs 5.25 million additional workers with education and training beyond high school through 2032. What type of skills are you talking there when you say there's a skills shortage?
Strohl: In that report, honestly, we're just using degree as a marker for skill. We're not talking about gradated skills that have really become part of the conversation. So it's not really a named skill, but it is the differentiation between probably more specific and then a balance of general and specific skills that you tend to get more with the four-year degree.
So, a four-year degree is often split between specific education, being an accountant. Plus your Gen Ed requirements. And that brings together general and specific skills which open up cognitive flexibility in the workforce.
And the rate of stuff changing out there in the labor market, we can't get people to go back to school. So they have to be empowered with this combination of skill sets and educational delivery so that they themselves can be flexible in the face of change.
Juravich: I talked with the leader of our area chamber of commerce and he says that we need to all be more adaptable and become lifelong learners. We need to be willing in our jobs to learn to change, learn more, grow with the job, change with the job. What do you think about that?
Strohl: Absolutely. I mean, if you look at productivity gains, wages, that education explains a lot of your entry wage, but the rest of your career is all about the experience. So people already learn on the job. People already have that type of resilience in the labor market.
And you can see it by the gains through experience. Now we need to focus on it more. We need to really empower the worker to take on that task and have the confidence that you can pace change and people get that with age as they move.
So, but absolutely, if we don't have a workforce that can respond to change, we don't have an education and training system big enough to send everybody back to a training program every time they need to make an adjustment. So the American model is extremely unique in this regard because of that flexibility of our labor force. And we sure need to focus, keep focusing on it.
Juravich: And back to that study about the skills shortage. I mean, some of the jobs that you cite in that study are a need for attorneys, doctors, engineers, nurses, teachers, you know, I mean it really runs the gamut.
But then you also said that this skills shortage presents an opportunity for millions of workers, particularly those from low income households and marginalized racial and ethnic groups to gain better access to economic opportunities. Can you explain a little more? I mean are we needing to have, to tell low-income households and these more marginalized groups, like go to school for this. This is what's needed.
Strohl: Well, I've been saying this for a little bit now that equity is no longer just a nice thing. It's actually an economic imperative and especially if continued momentum on deportations happen, we're exiting a lot of skill from the labor market, both from the low skilled and the high skilled portion of the labor markets.
So that means we have to be able to support and grow our own internal talent. And so many people have been left on the sidelines every year. Have a high school graduation class between 500 and 600,000 students from the top half of the high school class do not get a degree, any kind of degree.
I mean, it's a huge waste of talent. We're not talking about students who failed out of high school and reaching really deep. Sometimes I think we're going to have to, but we're talking, we have a lost rate of talent in the economy and we have business groups saying we don't have enough talent. Well, let's go and help everybody uplift.
Juravich: Are you saying because they feel like they can't afford college, so they end up just not doing it? Is that what you mean?
Strohl: Oh, there's a whole bunch of different factors. So for instance, if your parents only have a high school degree, you have about a 27% chance of getting a BA. If your parents have a professional degree, you have an 83% chance to getting a B.A.
So there is social capital and expectational formation in the home that is accelerated if your parent's higher college graduates. And it's a little more difficult if your parents aren't for the first time college going students.
Not only because of the financial side, but the whole culture of college goingness, it isn't supported just back to retraining parents about being a welder. Well, there's a whole number of parents who have never had the opportunity to think about going to college other than go to college.
So when the children go to those parents, those parents are less equipped to help them figure out is college the right thing? How do you afford it? Or where do you go? I mean, there's all these questions out there.
And back to my thing about the counseling system, we've under invested, right now counselors should be 250 to one, they're like 750 to one. I mean, you just line them up your door, you give them Naviance and you're done. I mean they can't really be as helpful as they should be and not their fault, but I think it's a resource allocation problem.
Juravich: Yeah, so we need guidance counselors, more guidance counselors and guidance counselors for parents too. All right.
Strohl: Yeah, no, exactly. That's right. That is a good line, yeah.
Juravich: Well, we've been talking about using a college degree in the workplace with Jeff Stroll, research professor and director of the Georgetown University Center on Education in the Workforce. Thank you so much for your time today.
Strohl: Thank you for having me.
Juravich: And coming up, we're gonna hear from the Franklin County Trades Academy, which recently had a crop of graduates who are ready for full-time jobs in plumbing, construction, HVAC, and more.
That's when untangled reshaping work continues from All Sides on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to "Untangled" from All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. "Untangled" is a show where we take a complicated topic and untangle it for you. Explain it in a way that's easier to understand. This season, we are tackling work.
Deciding what to do after high school used to feel like a one-way street leading straight to a four-year university. Today, however, the rising cost of tuition and a shifting labor market have reopened the debate between traditional college paths and specialized trade schools.
While a bachelor's degree offers a broad academic foundation and access to diverse career fields, trade schools provide a streamlined, cost-effective route to high-demand technical careers. Ultimately, neither path is superior. Instead, the right choice depends on an individual's financial goals, learning style, and long-term career aspirations in an evolving economy.
Joining us now to talk about the way we get more people involved in high- demand careers in the trades we have Stephanie Hightower, the president and CEO of the Columbus Urban League. The Columbus Urban league is the administrator of the Franklin County Trades Academy. Welcome back to the show Stephanie.
Stephanie Hightower: Thank you for having us.
Juravich: So the Franklin County Trades Academy, a seven-week, full-time, no-cost training program for those who are serious about a career in the skilled trades. And I know you just graduated your fourth cohort of students. Tell me, how is the program going?
Hightower: The program is, and it's an excellent way for those folks who need to upscale themselves and who are looking to go into the trades for them to come in in a meaningful way. Right now, we have about 1,500 people on the wait list. Whoa, that's a long wait list, okay.
It's a longer wait list and so that really just explains or says, Amy, how well the program is and this is without any type of marketing. This is by word of mouth and people who have come into our Career Connect Hub information sessions.
Juravich: So I was impressed with the diverse jobs represented in your most recent graduating class. There was construction and plumbing, masonry, electricians. Do you fit students with jobs or did the jobs come first and they pick the students?
Hightower: So it's really a combination of both. One of the things that with this new program that we reinvigorated earlier this year was we wanted to make sure that people were going to go to work as soon as they finished.
And so what we've been trying to do is match up, we know with all the construction that's going on in Columbus, Franklin County, Licking County, they kind of tell you what the skills are that are needed at certain times and certain projects.
And so what we try to do is we try to slide or we try to inform those people that these are the jobs that are going to be readily available. Now, if you want to be in masonry, but there may not be jobs for six months, then you're going to know that up up up front.
But if they're saying they need skilled laborers or they need welders right now, they need electricians, then that's where we try to guide people. And what we do is we have what we call as a Career Connect Hub Day.
Where we do a four E's presentation and the unions and the workers or welders or electricians the skilled laborers come in and they explain to those prospects, here's the day in the life of these jobs. And so then that does is it gives the people the opportunity to make a fair assessment as to whether or not this is a skilled trade that they want to go into.
Juravich: So when they apply those 1,500 people who are on the wait list, when they applied to be a part of the Franklin County Trades Academy, do they write on their application what they want to be, or they just know they want it be in the program, they want be in a skilled trade, and then you help them find which one.
Hightower: That's exactly what the process is. They sign up, and then we say, you have to go through this explain, explore process so that then you can determine what it is that you want to do and that you know you want to do prior to you just getting into the apprenticeship program and then finding out later on, I don't really like this or this is not of interest to me.
Juravich: Now, your most recent graduating class, I mean, you have great numbers. I mean people stick with this program. I think your cohort, cohort four had 26 people in it and only one had to drop out for personal reasons. So you graduated 25 of the 26, which is a great percentage. Are you trying to, so I'm noticing from cohort one that had 20 people in to cohort four that had 26. Are you tryin' to make it a little bit bigger each time?
Hightower: No, because with that large size, you need to keep it small so that people can really get that sort of intimate details and really that one-on-one, hands-on type of curriculum and skill building. So while we would love to have 50 people in a class, most of the instructors say we can only, any of about 25, no more, definitely no more than 30 should be in these classes.
Juravich: And so, but the fact that you have everyone complete it, I mean, are you, when you pick the people who are in here, you're making sure they're serious, they want this, they're looking for this career.
Hightower: Absolutely. So that's why we take the time to front load the information with individuals. And then you have to also realize that there is a $300 a week stipend attached to this.
And so they understand because we want them to be in school. This is their job. And so they understand if you miss a day or miss two days, you won't be paid that $300 as well. So we make sure that we're putting in place those compliant kinds of things so that people Understand If you're really serious and if you are using this as an additional income stream while you're going through this program because you probably still have another job, then if you're serious and you need these dollars, you gotta come to class.
Juravich: So we spent the first part of the show talking about whether a four-year college degree is worth it anymore. And I think the bottom line was, yes, it is worth it, just not for everyone. Tell me about the people who want to go into, the people apply, want to be a part of the Franklin County Trades Academy. Who are they? What kind of foot in the door are they trying to get?
Hightower: So, you know, our key demographics right now are justice-involved people, so we do go after and recruit those individuals, people who are underrepresented in the communities who may not know what these different job opportunities are.
And believe it or not, and one of the things that Commissioner Crawley wanted us to be very mindful of when they reallocated these funds to us is she wanted to have a significant amount of women that go through this program too. So we're really proud that we have about 30% of all of the folks who have come through are women.
I think this last class, I think half of them might have been women, almost half of the 25, I'm thinking 11 out of the 20. So it really goes to show that women have an interest. But again, women didn't know that they had these opportunities available to them. And now that they see other women completing this program, we're starting to get some direction.
Juravich: This is "Untangled" from All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. This show is a part of the WOSU Public Media Project Inside Reshaping Work. We're talking about increasing access to the skilled trades with the president and CEO of the Columbus Urban League, Stephanie Hightower.
The Urban League is the administrator for the Franklin County Trades Academy. Now it's well-documented that there's underrepresentation of black workers in the skilled trade. This is driven by a legacy of systemic exclusion from labor unions and apprenticeship programs. But do you feel like the tides are turning here with this program that you have or are you turning the tines yourself?
Hightower: I think this program is turning the tides. And when this program was initially conceived, it was about how do we get more people of color, more underrepresented people, more women in the trades.
But one of the things that we know now, again, when you look at all of the construction that's going on in Franklin and Licking County, and when you also look at from a generational standpoint, a lot of folks that were in the unions, one of the things that we're hearing now. Is that their children or their children's children no longer have an interest in going into the unions.
And so we're gonna be hopefully working a lot closer with the trades and building futures so that we can make sure that we're bringing those individuals from underrepresented groups and women to the table, as well as those who have been justice involved, be able to recruit them and get them into the trades program so they can go through a full apprenticeship program.
Juravich: I found a statistic that said that while comprising 12% of the overall US workforce, black workers make up only 7% of the construction industry. For your program, 88% of your graduates are black. So what does it tell you about this? I mean, are they feeling welcome, or is it just once you see it, you can do the job? Like, what are you finding there?
Hightower: You know, so when we do the Career Connect Hub, what we do is we have people who look like those people come to the room. And then they're explaining to them, from a cultural standpoint, this is what the day in the life of these jobs are.
So we have, we're working with the women in trades groups and so they come in and they talk to the women prospects. We have people of color, whether they're Hispanic or black, they come and these are skilled laborers, These are electricians. That come in and talk to folks who look like them.
And so I think what that does is it gives people a sense of inspiration and the ability to know that they can actually do this because there are people that look like them out there doing these jobs.
Juravich: So your overall placement rate is about 83%, but it says on the paper that I got from your organization that the union apprenticeship rate is 8%. So how do we get that union rate higher? Sure.
Hightower: So, you know, we're going to be working very closely with the unions. We're in the process of trying to figure out what our contractual agreement will look like. So we're really excited that we're gonna be looking and working with them for this next cohort to come through so that we can increase that rate.
One of the things that's happening now is a lot of our people are going into the private sector. Now, they are being placed, but they're in non-union jobs. Which means their apprenticeship journey may be a little bit different than if they went through the unions.
So that's what the difference is right now. We do, we wanna get more folks engaged with the unions, engaged in their apprenticeship programs because we know, especially a journeyman or journeywoman program, they will then earn a lot more money down the road.
Now it takes a minute. It's not an overnight success, right? You have to stay very engaged. But we are going to be working very closely with the unions in the near future to get more of them in the union program.
Juravich: Is, I mean, so they're all getting jobs. It just might not be a union job. Yeah, so is the union job better? I don't even know if I wanna use the word better. Is it, or is just like, is there more of a career track there?
Hightower: You know, I think it's a matter of which projects, as you know, there are public projects, there are private projects. Union wages are generally a lot higher than some of the private.
Juravich: Or maybe benefits. Or more benefits are different.
Hightower: Privates, you don't have to pay dues, union, you have to pay dues. But being in the union and being in that apprenticeship programs is probably going to move you up a lot quicker to go on track than if you're working in the private sector.
Juravich: So tell me about, so you've done four cohorts. Tell me about cohort five. Are we planning on five?
Hightower: Absolutely. We're planning on five. So we have also funding from the National Urban League through the Department of Labor program that basically the National urban league went to the Department of Labor about two and a half years ago based upon the program that we had here in Columbus that we incubated for five years and basically went and sold that to the department of labor and so they have been funding in five states basically apprenticeship programs and we're one of post.
Juravich: Okay, so when does, I mean, I know you have this wait list, so I guess you don't even want more people to apply. I was like, when does cohort five start? Well, we're still trying to figure it out.
Hightower: Well, we're still trying to figure that out right now. We're hoping by August we can get that next group of people lined up and ready to go. Well, know the people are ready to go, we just need to re-interview of those 1,500.
And again, what's really important here is if we get this new, during this next iteration of this, there's gonna be two cohorts going on simultaneously. There's gonna a cohort that's gonna be going on during the day, and then there's going to be a cohort.
That's gonna be a little bit longer because it's gonna in the evenings and it's only gonna be three hours a night as opposed to staying five days a week, eight hours a day. But we're gonna start with, we're going to have two cohorts that are gonna be running. So we're really excited about this opportunity to get at least 50 people in the queue and get them out in the workforce.
Juravich: Oh, that's great. And there's a little more flexibility there so they can do the evenings if they have child care issues or other another job
Hightower: Absolutely, absolutely. They just have a little bit longer period.
Juravich: So is there money there for this to continue forever? There's never forever money, I guess, yeah.
Hightower: Well, you know, with all of the uncertainty that's going on in the workforce climate right now in Washington, D.C., my hope is that, because even when Houston was still here at the state, they were looking at apprenticeship programs, and they see the value of them across the state.
And you can see there are a lot of apprenticeship programs when you start doing and calculating across the state. I think that our Franklin County Commissioners, which we're so grateful of, they see the value of what this actually does, how it changed lives, how really impacts the economy, how we get more people paying taxes, right, how we have more people that are actually out here working.
So I'm hopeful that the current leadership at the county will continue as long as they possibly can to make sure that this program continues.
Juravich: And just you, as being in charge of the Columbus Urban League, being the administrator of this program, what just to end on, you know, what how proud are you of this? You must be so proud of this.
Hightower: Oh gosh, this is one that we've been fighting for. We had it for five years, it then transitioned to another entity. That entity didn't progress as well as everyone thought. And so this was one that I was willing to go back to the county commissioners, really show the impact and the value with the data, to be able to have data to show.
While it was a hard lift, they understood because we had data to be able to back up, this program works, and when you see all the construction, everything that's going on in Franklin County, and you see the need, it really makes sense, and everyone can see the return on the investment.
Juravich: We've been talking about the Franklin County Trades Academy, which is being administered by the Columbus Urban League. And we've been with President and CEO of the Urban League, Stephanie Hightower. Thank you so much for your time today.
Hightower: Thank you, Ms. Amy.
Juravich: And coming up, we're going to talk about where AI fits into all of this. AI in college, white collar work, and in the trades. That's when untangled reshaping work continues from All Sides on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides, and this is "Untangled." I'm your host, Amy Juravich. "Untangled" is a show where we take a complicated topic and untangle it for you, explain it in a way that's easier to understand. And this season, we are tackling work.
The rise of artificial intelligence has added a complex layer to the age-old debate between college and trade school, with a four-year degree focusing on critical thinking and trade schools emphasizing essential manual expertise. The rapid advancement of AI now threatens to automate roles in both sectors.
We're gonna talk about the rise of artificial intelligence in the workplace with Kevin Fox. He is the founder of FoxWorks Group. He helps organizations navigate the rise of AI inside everyday business operations. Welcome to the show, Kevin.
Kevin Fox: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Juravich: So I'm gonna start with a question everyone's always asking. Is AI gonna take my job? Maybe not my job, but sure, my job anyone's job, yeah.
Fox: I think it's the wrong question.
Juravich: Okay, yeah, ask a different way.
Fox: I think because it's so based in fear and and like I get it like the landscapes changing so quickly but we've been here before right like if we think back just a little bit you know there were there was a job called calculator right now every day we pull out a calculator right and we'll use it well there was a jobs you know these were you know NASA used calculators to project human Calculators right and So that tool evolved, kind of took the human name, and now we use it in everyday practice.
Well, we're in a similar space now, right, to where there's a lot of hype around AI and a lot fear-mongering, and I think a lot that's coming from the folks who have something to gain from that, right? A lot of that's come from the large platforms, the open AI's, the anthropics, because they need to generate revenue, right.
They're burning through cash, so they need capex coming in. And so the. Build these spheres, but the reality is what we have today, the AI that's built today is incredibly powerful and we really need to think about how we can be working alongside of AI.
Everybody, like, so it used to be we go to a trade school or we go college and we would learn skillsets, we learned softwares that were associated with that. The AI is just gonna be built on alongside that.
AI fluency is just going to be non-negotiable and what's really exciting is AI still can't do everything, right? It's not going to take everyone's job. AI knows a lot about data. AI doesn't know about people, people. It needs people. And I think that that's one thing that I hope people can find some excitement and interest in that.
I think there's going to be a recurrence of maybe a resurgence in the humanities being studied, right, because in a world of abundant IQ, EQ. Thank you. Is going to be more and more important, right? We need to have that emotional intelligence. We need have that ability to, AI can tell us the data.
We need EQ to tell us if that data matters to anybody, right. And so that's where I think people should look to AI as like, look, it can help me. It's supercharging me. It's like I can research faster than ever I could before. I can iterate faster than I ever could before, But the other day... You're using AI, he's using AI.
She's using the AI. So when you all have access to that intelligence, what are you doing with it, right? What's your filter? So the importance on. The importance on filtering through that, understanding like what's good from bad, right? Having taste, judgment. So, you know, that arts degree is still gonna pay off.
It's good to still learn how to write because you know AI can write a lot of things that looks reasonable. But if you truly are a writer, then you can poke and prod and really improve that output, right. So I don't want people to. Feel like, well, AI is just taking care of everything.
No, it's a tool that we can actually use, you know? And I think the important thing is that we just stay curious because it's changing at breakneck speed. Yeah. It's really tough to keep up. I mean, I do this full-time and I have a hard time sometimes keeping up with where it's going, but that's gonna be the key is staying curious.
Juravich: What are you seeing when it comes to businesses embracing AI? Like when they come to you, are they behind? Are they playing catch up? Cause AI is so advanced.
Fox: Yeah, it depends on the size of business, but like so on the enterprise side every business has an AI initiative on the table, right? It's the topic of every board meeting, what do we do in an AI? And so they're building plans and they're looking for help in building that infrastructure.
But on the other side, you have small businesses or mid-size businesses who are like, hey, I need some of that AI everybody's talking about. Yeah. What's this? And so. They really have nowhere to start. And so, you know, that's one thing we do is help give them a baseline and understanding the best way to kind of take that first step in. A lot of times it's as simple as, you know, bolstering.
Don't let phone calls go to voicemail on the weekend or after hours, right? Have an automated voice receptionist handle that. And then send out automations to continue that conversation. It could be. You know, automated booking links that are connected to an AI agent that can have a conversation and answer frequently asked questions.
Like these are like totally like the very beginnings, just dip your toe in the water kind of moments. But what happens is a lot of these businesses don't have that infrastructure, right? Like, well, we have a front desk. Yeah, but like how many calls are going to voicemail? Right?
And so you start looking at that number. We know that, you know if a call is not answered, over 80% of people aren't going to leave a voicemails anyway, right. And if they do, you better get back to them within five minutes or less or they're gone. Right, if you're in a competitive space. So this totally handles that for them.
So instituting small things like that or increasing ROI in really in 30 days, you're seeing a 60% lift, right? Things like that to where, when they're coming from zero, it's really easy. And then what's exciting about AI from the business perspective is when it's built properly, it's an integrated ecosystem, right. So all of your AI systems are talking to each other. They're getting smarter the longer you use them.
Juravich: This is "Untangled" from All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. And this show is a part of the WOSU Public Media Project Inside Reshaping Work. We are talking with Kevin Fox, founder of the FoxWorks Group.
And he helps organizations navigate the rise of AI inside everyday business operations. There are a lot of AI startups in central Ohio. And there's a lot consultants in AI, too. So a part the reason I wanted to talk to you is your group had presented to.
The Midwest Roofing Contractors Association and the National Frame Building Association. So if I was to think of some jobs that could not be done by AI, I think roofer would be at the top of that category. So tell me about roofers and framers using AI.
Fox: Those are great examples when you talk about someone who's built a very successful business They maybe have the operational infrastructure in place to to run that business But they're they're missing out on those let those levers that they can pull to really grow and scale Right, and so those are great Examples of you know from the very beginning of like hey, I can't answer a phone call if I'm on a roof Right or right.
I'm actually you know, you have some businesses that are that small They're actually fulfilling the service and they can't maybe grow their business So that's where Voice Receptionist, AI web chats, those things come in handy. Or you could be like, you know what, I have a website, but nobody can find it, right?
So leveraging AI tools to really make sure that their business is visible, can have a really outsized effect, because again, they have good reviews, but people aren't finding them in the first place. So there's a lot of ways that you can leverage AI, AI tools and platforms to really just kind of put your business kind of add an accelerant to it, right?
And that's true from, business perspective as well as individuals. Just really looking to supercharge your abilities, rather than seeing it as a foe, seeing it is really your superpower. But yeah, so National Framebuilding Association is another great example to where you have folks who... It's interesting. I talk a lot of times about if one day, everyone's going to look at AI is just the same as electricity.
Juravich: Okay. How far, how much longer, how far away is that?
Fox: Very, very soon. It's going to be a metered utility you bring into your business and it's just something you know you need to use. It is what systems you use and what platforms you bring in and how you connect them that's going be your differentiator.
But like so oftentimes I'll say like most businesses aren't walking around saying I need to get some electricity in my business. There's just a given. But the electricity itself does nothing. It's what it powers. So I like to think about AI in that same way.
In the National Frame Building Association, we have builders who are at every stage, some incredibly large organizations and some small builders that are at different stages of that incorporating the AI into their system. And quite frankly, some of them, whether they're using electricity, right? There's actually a large...
Juravich: You mean literally exactly so so I don't know if you're gonna get the Mennonites to use AI, right?
Fox: Right, well, you'd be surprised. They may not use it, but someone in their organization can. But it really has that line of, it's like electricity. It rings a little differently in that space. But what's interesting is that group is, I've been shocked at how hungry they are to adopt and understand how they can kind of bring in AI and build these efficiencies. So it's been a really fun group to speak to. So. I've had the opportunity to speak to their national group a couple of times. Wow.
Juravich: Wow, okay, yeah, and are they more receptive each year? Because if you spoke more than once, I can imagine.
Fox: Sure yeah you know uh and then uh you know always lots of great questions and after after the fact but uh this last year it was you know full engagement everybody's on board they know i'm not like making all this up they realize it's a real thing okay
Juravich: OK, your website says you are helping organizations rethink how work gets done and what roles humans play in the future. Can you give me an example of that?
Fox: Yeah. So the first thing that we always like to do is we run an AI readiness assessment. So we like to look through like, what are the roles that are kind of, you know, primed for AI automation, right? And generally these are the things that you or the people on your team don't want to be doing, right.
It's the work of the work. It's, the tiresome burden, some kind of hurdles that get in the way of you achieving what you want to achieve. We like to start there, and then we look at the systems and softwares that we would need to connect and add AI intelligence to to actually simplify that approach so that you're not, again, replacing that person, you're letting them focus on the thing that they're passionate about, right?
You're letting the focus on the things that they really better at and the things that they do better than the AI. So that's the key is like taking kind of some of the burden and the stress out of the workaday work and letting them focusing on what they do best.
Juravich: So I read a piece recently about high school seniors and college freshmen who are out there looking for an AI-proof major, right? And they're having a hard time figuring out what that is because it's changing so fast. Do you know what an AI proof major would be?
Fox: You know, that's a great question. This article didn't figure it out, but continue. I think if anyone sat in this chair and they said they had the answer, they'd be full of it. But I don't think it's one major. I think it is a mindset.
And I really do believe the mindset is one of curiosity. It's one that like this incoming group of students that are gonna be heading down to the workforce, they're gonna be facing something no one's ever faced before. Because the landscape is gonna be changing more drastically than it's ever changed before, more often, right? So the Industrial Revolution happens, we adapted, we made do. This is gonna the Industrial revolution over and over again.
Juravich: And faster.
Fox: Exactly much shorter time scale and then once we think we figured it out there's going to be another change, right? So being adaptable being understanding that I didn't don't think I'm gonna go to school. I'm going to get a mate I'm Gonna major in this I'm Going to learn these things and then I'm set right?
It's be a lifelong learner be curious be adaptable and and understand I think that I really do believe that you know intelligence is being democratized everyone's going have access to lots of intelligence. The IQ is there. Emotional intelligence is going to be huge. It really is.
Juravich: So the person who was featured in this piece, who was the person who was trying to figure out the AI approved major, she switched from being a business analytics major to being a marketing major. And she said that you can learn to code, but you also need to learn how to communicate and think critically. So is she on the right track? On the right track.
Fox: Exactly, that's what I always say. I think the humanities are making a huge comeback. Writing, psychology, philosophy, all of that ooey, gooey, touchy, feely human stuff, right? Because that's the AIs can't do, right.
And so I come from a background of marketing and advertising. My career sat at the intersection of creativity, strategy, and technology. And that served me well in this space to be always looking to be solving problems, to be curious, to continue to grow my learning.
And I think that's where they wanna be. You know, cause again, the... The data can tell you the answer, right? But you need this, the human can say whether someone's ready to hear that answer, and if someone's not ready to here that answer the human could craft a story to convince somebody to be ready to that answer. So storytelling, creativity, strategy, psychology, those things are gonna be hugely, hugely important moving forward.
Juravich: We only have 30 seconds left, but if you wanna just leave someone with a note to end on of not being afraid of AI, embracing AI, what would you say?
Fox: I think, yes, certainly as we move forward, intelligence is going to be everywhere. Your ability to take in that intelligence and provide a point of view on it is going to be the differentiator, right? So get ooey gooey.
Juravich: All right. Major in empathy? Yeah. Major in Empathy. Is that the college-proof major? The AI-proof Major for College.
Fox: Oh, ABC, always be curious. That's what I leave your folks with.
Juravich: All right. We have been talking with Kevin Fox, founder of the FoxWorks Group, and he is helping organizations navigate the rise of AI inside everyday business operations. Thank you so much for your time today. Thanks for having me.
This is "Untangled" Reshaping Work from All Sides in WOSU. Be sure to subscribe to the "Untangled" podcast so you don't miss an episode. Next time we are going to hear from three experts who were featured at our Inside Reshaping Work WOSUTV town hall. We're gonna discuss the future of work, immigration, and AI. Listen next time. This is "Untangled" and All Sides. I'm Amy Juravich.