Re “Build trade schools, Trump tells Harvard: Lutnick says deal would call for $500m investment” (Business, Sept. 12): What if Harvard and MIT decided to collaborate by founding, say, a new Center for Education in Technology, offering job training programs for those searching for meaningful employment in the evolving world of the 21st century? While each of these two esteemed universities grope for what comes next, our country needs leadership in understanding and responding to younger people whose high school education has not prepared them for the jobs in the emerging economy. Those displaced by economic transition need help as well.
To develop such a program, the mega-corporations of today should be engaged as partners in defining the skills that will be necessary. They also need to be engaged as financial supporters, since they will be beneficiaries as well. Ideally, such centers would be tuition-free.