President Donald Trump’s threat to strip Harvard of billions of dollars in grants and give the money to trade schools has sparked praise from some trade enthusiasts, who believe it is time for the non-traditional college route to shine.
“Right now, homes in the United States are the most expensive they’ve ever been, and I can personally attest to the fact that trade education and skilled labor are the least educated they’ve ever been.
We’re at a point where schools are re-implementing trade programs, which is good, but a lot of them are struggling with budgets, so I could see this being a good thing,” Jarod Coffman, owner of Colorado-based Coffman Construction, told “Fox & Friends First” on Tuesday.
Coffman believes that the best way to teach students how to build a house is to have them build one themselves, and he believes Trump’s rhetoric could be “influential” in causing change.
He gave the example of a nearby school that subdivided a plot of land and uses it to build an actual home with students each year.
He claims that funding such programs solves two problems at once: it helps to alleviate the housing shortage while also teaching students a new skill.
“You’re helping provide to the actual housing deficit and the fact that we need more houses on the market while doing them at a cheaper rate because you are doing it with the schools, but then also being able to teach the students more effectively all at the same time,” according to him.
On “Fox & Friends,” “Blue Collar Cash” author Ken Rusk agreed, telling the co-hosts on the curvy couch that going to trade school allows students to learn something that benefits the country.
“We’re witnessing the revolution of common sense, right?” he asked guest host Charlie Hurt.
“No one who is struggling to pay their bills, such as gas, groceries, or mortgages, cares about the top 20 or 30 schools.” No one is crying when someone tries to take some of this money back, because most of us are asking, “Why are we giving this money to these places in the first place when they have the ability to do some of these things on their own?” It’s such a shame.”
Both guests were pleased to see the stigma associated with trade labor being lifted.
The Trump administration has been at odds with the elite institution over alleged failures to adequately address antisemitism, and it has issued additional threats amid a dispute over foreign student records.
In light of “radicalization” concerns, the administration requested that Harvard present information on foreign students as well as other materials.
Harvard declined to respond to Fox News Digital’s previous request for comment on the matter.
Harvard President Alan Garber insisted in an NPR interview on Monday that redirecting the funds would benefit neither the university nor the public.
“The money that goes to research universities in the form of grants and contracts, which is almost all of the federal support that we get, is used to pay for work that we perform at the behest of the government,” Garber told the audience.
“So, in reallocating to some other use, including trade schools, it means that work just won’t be performed,” the politician explained. “So, the right question is: Is this the best use of federal funds? Do you really want to cut back on research funding?”
“I’m less concerned with whether it goes to trade school or to another project, such as highway construction. The real question is: how much value does the federal government derive from its research investments? There is a lot of actual research showing that the benefits to the American people have been enormous,” he added.
Harvard filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts on Friday, challenging the termination of the student visa program.
According to Harvard’s court filing, the revocation affects over 7,000 visa holders, or more than a quarter of its student body, and “is a blatant violation of the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act.”
“It is the latest act by the government in clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students,” according to the lawsuit.”
