live campaign 2020 coverage continues today at 1:00 senator on c-span, with bernie sanders in and most iowa, and at 5:00, president trump launches the evangelicals for trump coalition event in miami. and at 5:30 on c-span two, senator amy klobuchar is in cedar rapids. 1:455 eastern time -- at eastern, joe biden, and tom steyer's in waterloo iowa. -- waterloo, iowa. you can watch online, or listen live on the radio app. richard wang joins us from seattle on the future of work and the skills gap in this country. but your day job in seattle is a ceo of coding dojo.

can you slain what it does? guest: thank you for having me on the program. dojo, we of coding provide in demandtec training to anyone with no developing background, and train them for three months and get them ready for the economy. so after coming out of the program they will be ready to become a software developer, working with tech companies in the tech sector. you write a column for forbes technology council, you talk about the idea of a skills gap in this country, and how apprenticeship programs might be a way to bridge that gap, can you explain what the skills gap is? we are in the fourth industrial revolution, we are looking at virtual and augmented reality, bioscience, robotics,

and different technologies that are happening. and everything underneath this poweringreally in the of the economy. students coming out of four-year college are not getting trained on essential skills. what we are seeing in the private sector is that there are a lot of students coming out of four-year college carrying hundred thousand dollars or 200 thousand dollars, some carrying $300,000 of debt and they cannot get jobs. underemployed, these are smart young people, they are all underemployed, they get stuck, and i think in the public sector we have to do a better job connecting our young people within demand man skills to be productive. remedy for the modern skills gap, for a public

so focused on the traditional four-year college route, can you explain how apprenticeship programs work, and how you think they can be expanded? >> if you look at the numbers, we have about 9% of the united states youth going into a trade school. if you look into germany those numbers are 60%. we have this negative connotation to trade schools, but this program, you go into and for some, in college as well, you learn technical skills and after you graduate you go in turn for the companies that you -- based on the skills that you study. it gives you real live experiences on what it's like to be on the job. thatould end up with a job

was an apprenticeship for. that's a great way of marrying what you learned and then getting a job after you graduate. and on the apprenticeship programs in this country, the final column at the bottom, the , 585,000 active apprenticeships in the country in 2018. do you see that competing with the millions that go to the traditional four-year college program? guest: when you do a better job in terms of providing young people with better solutions, the four-year university has a strong brand. i think our parents want us to go to a four-year university. i don't think it's right for everyone. we have to provide different

options for young people. coming to college, carrying debt and not finding a job, that's not beneficial for anyone. when you look at the jobs numbers, we are at an all-time low for unemployment, the job quality is an all-time low. a lot of young people are working two or three jobs and that is not sustainable. it's a trap. once you get those two or three jobs, you cannot get out of that environment. you get stuck. we have to provide better training and better options. it should not be the option for everyone. host: we split our phone lines by your own education. we want to hear from viewers who went to technical schools, that number is (202) 748-8000.

those who have done apprenticeships, (202) 748-8001. . college graduates, (202) 748-8002. all others, that number is (202) 748-8003. we are talking about the skills gap in the country. people call in, you argue there is a role the federal government comply in inhing the education system this new direction. what is that role? with the speed of technology changing right now, we have a simpler skill economy. that means we incentivize employers to upscale the workforce. skillate a national

program or we are sending people back to school every 7-10 years. we are obtaining new skill sets to be valuable in the labor market. our competitiveness is to go back to school every 7-10 years to get retrained. i think the government has to great policy that enables that to happen. that is why the federal government is coming in. think the government jobs are creating economic ability. right now, we don't see that. host: are there specific ways to do that, especially people who can't go back to school every

7-10 years. what specifically in the government do? are we talking about tax breaks? federal dollars for retraining programs that people can tap into so they can make a living while they are going back to school? guest: exactly. we have pilot programs with family services. tuition.e free this provided the wraparound services and the payment. they got paid while they went through school. program in the private sector. the government will look into this. how will they provide services while getting trained? the benefits will go back to the government because now they are

getting higher-paying jobs. system,mics within the for the presidential candidates talking about the freedom dividend, we can talk about something similar for young people right now. host: how much is that going to cost and where you get the money? guest: i think we spend enough money in terms of the defense buzz it and other things -- budget. we can allocate some money for education. when people get retrained and go $80,000school, they get more with a better paying job. a positive circle with the economy. it will create a lot of good in how we get our young people back to doing productive high-quality work, not just low plane --

paying jobs. host: a conversation about the skills gap. viewers a chance to chat with a tech entrepreneur, richard wang in seattle this morning. he is the ceo of coding dojo. we let joe from staten island who goes to a technical school talk. go ahead. caller: this guy is right. i want to start a computer school. my guidance counselor, all of them said go to college.

thank you. host: thank you for calling in and bringing that up. at one person said to go to technical school. everyone said go to college. how do you change that? problemhere is a relating to trade school and technical schools. this is where the government can do a lot of good in terms of providing different options. ,f you look at public education the performance metric is how many go to colleges. those incentives have to be changing. a trade school is a right

option, we have to provide more awareness for all of the options out there. host: do you think there is a stigma about a noncollege route? guest: absolutely. that give me an example and how people in your area are looking to change that? think in the past 4-5 it is more well-known in a city like seattle or silicon valley, new york. how do i get to be a software developer? maybe go to a coding camp. i think people here of these concepts. we treating you and train you with different languages for the

real world to become a software developer. more urban, we have these environments. it is much tougher. in terms of the branding of alternatives to college, the government has to do a better job. host: what kind of program? it was 30 years ago. i was a ago when freshfaced young man, i was the international brotherhood of electrical workers. value of thethe journeyman card. the licensing that one along with it. my father explained to me there only three license trades,

electrician, plumbers. i decided to become a plumber. i went down and took the how to get into it. i stood in the line and there theya thousand guys and were going to take 25 apprentices. i did that twice and never got called back. how do i do this? i joined the military. i joined the air force as an active duty plumber. after seven years, i applied for the plumbing apprenticeship again in the mid-80's. i finally got in. after five years of going through the entire course and making good money along the way, and enjoying everything that i did, i became a journeyman. i decided to become a piping plumber. i spent my time in hospitals

doing piping work. turned 56, i retired. i walked out the door. i make a town of money every month. the apprentice ship didn't cost me a dime. now local 290 in oregon, we've got 600 apprentices in school. when i went to school, there were 50. the number has increased. i suggest he go through the thening center and go to steamfitters training center in seattle. they will be happy to show you how they do it. thank you very much. think that's great. we are seeing increasing over time the number of apprentices. one thing we have to think about

is young graduates out of aboute, we have to think getting into artificial intelligence economy. people driving trucks right now. the autonomous trucks adaptation. when that happens, we are replacing 3 million truck drivers. start to take jobs from human beings. we will have 2 million people the were carpenters. when these think start replacing 5 million people, how are we going to retrain or re-skill them?

that's a big problem that we have to solve. in terms of rescaling the just for the's not audience of people about to go to college. it's also for people 40 years old. when you look at truckers now, the average ages 47. that is a good job without a college degree. how do we re-skill them? host: you talk about those going to college. the average tuition among 2024nal universities, in private national universities, it is $41,000 per year. out of state is $27,000. in-state, $11,000 per year. whenre that to 2000 private universities were

$16,000, out-of-state was $9,600, in state was $3500 per year. i don't think that counts for room and board and food and tuition. analysis, you are carrying $300,000 debt. that's a lot of money. that, itou declare stays with you. we have to make a difference in terms of is college the right option for everyone. host: how must is it cost for someone to enroll in the coding dojo program? how long does it take? isst: the program $10,000-$12,000. it's about 14 weeks that we train anyone to code. ininvest three years

development behind the technology and content. digest a hard concept into something simple? anyone can learn this and become a professional. make how much do people after they go through your program? guest: we operate in 10 different locations around the country. cost-of-living in the area, average salary is about $75,000 per year. host: how we people have gone through the program? guest: probably about 6000 people have graduated from our program. oft: richard wang is the ceo coding dojo. we are talking about the future of education through the college route. good morning. caller: good morning.

i.t. field. i'm about to go into the office. that the vastt majority of the people making hiring decisions are not technical people. that's why they require these four-year degrees. there are people i know that cannot troubleshoot a wire. i was in the air force before i went to college. they cannot troubleshoot a wire. this is what happens with technical people, i was on a hiring panel and we hired high school graduate with a lot of experience. the college people didn't know what to do with the network. unanimous recommendation. technical, shet

wanted to override us. this is the person we need. continued resistance on our part, she finally hired the guy he turned out to be really good. that's the problem. , i don't knowoder if you recall a number of years ago, it was still current. an 18-year-old out of brazil was heading the entire branch. that six at the time. he was good. you have proved yourself. maintain it. that is really how it not to be. how do wen to you is

change that mindset of these non-technical hiring people that make the decisions to go for more people like what you are teaching with your apprentice program? that doesn't help the developers. host: thank you for the question. i want to give mr. wang a chance to answer so you're not late to work. guest: it is going to be hard. a biaslly when you have within the management ranks. they are more likely to hire people, that is the human bias. trend.starting to see a google and microsoft are going to a movement where we don't need a college degree to do this. bill gates is a dropout. steve jobs did not finish

college. ae pioneers did not have college degree. we are starting to see a good movement within the tech sector. this without a degree. that is ok. i think hopefully that will spread. i think based on the private sector, someone who does computer science, they are people coming out with military degrees or foundational degrees like english. what matters is your problem solving skill set, the way you approach the problem. how you define the creative solution. we are starting to see a good trend in terms of how the industry fills the gap.

we don't have enough. we have to be better in terms of educating ourselves about new practices and went to adapt. in terms of software development, 25 million people around the globe. that is not enough to support the entire global economy. we have to find a better way to retrain people and get them into tech jobs. the average salary is about $75,000 per year. we asked on twitter can't it be outsourced? guest: it can be. beertain part of coding can outsourced, some stays in house. years, there is a heavy operational cost.

is somebody else doing work for you in a remote location? in terms of communication, those are the shadow costs they are not seen. nowtrend they are seen supersedes the movement. they are going back to the we find american workers are very creative and work really hard. it cuts out all the inefficiencies. you have your worker right here. host: mary went to a technical school. good morning. caller: i went to a vocational technical school 50 years ago in the early 1970's.

they are called cte, career and technical education. i studied nursing. the school i went to in west outinia is still turning in the practical nursing field. the traditional college. my downer did reap a lot of benefits when she went to college in the early 1990's. host: what was the biggest benefit? have a it helped her a wager in her.

particular degree wasn't that great. it wasn't a bonehead. degreet that she had the from this college sent her to larger economic category. discrediting not the value of a four-year degree. great for your daughter. stats, 33% ofhe americans have a college degree or higher. that means 67% do not. the average american is a high school graduate.

is abegs the question college degree right for everyone? how do we ensure the majority of americans are going to be successful in the ai economy? we have to have a solution for everyone. it's not just about the economy. everyone will have a chance to win. host: we have one more chart to show viewers. this is the total loan debt in this country, the blue line is from the early 2000's up through 2018. that is the student loan debt line. is $1.46 trillion. that compares to auto loan debt which is the darker line, about

1.2 trillion -- dollars. those charts are from nbc news. your thoughts on those numbers? i think the numbers speak for themselves. i think it will be interesting to see the return investment. essentially, it's not just about spending money and counting the numbers. did that can out? -- pan out? are they in high school jobs? are they in low skilled jobs? context in the

numbers. in reality, those are some of the things we would like to see. host: we've got about 10 minutes left in our program this morning. we will take as many calls as we can, including charles who went through an apprenticeship program. good morning. caller: good morning. where thea program nationals stadium was. i was able to learn heavy equipment operation. when you look at the construction going on in the you have tocolumbia wonder. i have earned six figures over the last two years without a college degree. you look at the infrastructure

needed, is the government going orstep in and have schools models like massachusetts has. apprentice robust program. they outperform traditional students. i had peers to want to traditional colleges in between jobs. they are still working on student loan debt. something needs to be done. guest: absolutely. i think that's great. in that economy now. many jobs will be taken away by ai. manynot going to take trade skill jobs.

very unique environment and a very unique skill. those are going to be good jobs. the supply and demand in the labor market, need to think about how we provide and encourage these alternative solutions. far, we have not heard from the candidates, whether it's elizabeth warner bernie sanders or some the front runners. the ai economy is here. will be displaced by this technology. what are we going to do? we have to push the candidates to provide solutions. host: in terms of what this administration has pushed, what is the act?

guest: could you repeat that? host: the perkins career and 2018,ion act signed in $1.2 billion a year for workforce development. that, iy reaction to don't know where the money is being sent or being sourced. as you know, we are facing such a big problem. i'm not sure that will be enough. it is not enough for the scale looking to move the needle. i would want to study how the money is being sent into the private sector to encourage more

printer ships. host: what was your education path? me, i wasterms of strongly influenced by my parents. i came to the nine states when i was seven years old. -- united states when i was seven years old. we were immigrants. you have to go to college. i carried a significant amount of debt. i learned a lot of theory. it wasn't really relevant to the work i do today. i had to learn on the go. went through the ,raditional four-year college it was way too expensive. thatlly believe

universities are not for everyone. there should be other solutions for that. host: just south of washington you went to the college rep. go ahead. caller: good morning. button for me. i have a story and a question. i came from a situation where i was pushed by my family. i was encouraged by my family to go the degree route. i am 28. while i was in school, i became aware of the situation. with an associates degree. the whole i was getting put in was debt and my degree path not going to be able to provide. i had to try to live.

now my situation is not having any real skills that allow me to move forward. this, people need to have a clear set of options about other ways of being educated. other options are also a lot more attractive. dojo atible is coding helping students? frommay be transitioning the current system. it, iat i'm hearing about am interested in looking into it. i would love to learn skills i can take with me. systemffected by the that has trapped me. i have some that i want to pay back.

i could say a lot more. that is my question. host: thanks for the call. guest: i think you hit the nail on the head. stuff.rn 90% of it's all based on theory. we can relate that. we learned on the go. essentiallyto do is have you always learning a skill hands-on. it's not just about theory. 90% of what we teach you is on the job skill. we find it things the most useful, how do we imitate the workforce environment?

had do we teach you how to learn so you can be successful 10 years down the road. if you master the fundamental holding box, it doesn't matter the environment. host: we have two minutes left and one more call. caller: thank you so much for having this conversation. i am fortunate enough to count myself as having my cake and eating it too. schoolded a vocational in massachusetts. it was focused on agricultural vocation. i majored in floral design. i learned about budgeting and toing and selling and how run a company. and ined about biology

thought standardized tests were so simple. my friends who went to high school were baffled. got andhe knowledge i what the college rep. to go totunate enough graduate school at harvard university for education. i don't think i would have gotten to that level and succeeded in the way i had it has not been for my agricultural education. we were chopping down trees. that,6-year-old to do harvard doesn't seem like that big of a challenge. two years ago, joseph kennedy delivered the remarks after the state of the union. he delivered it from my vocational school. i think it's different now.

schools don't have the same stigma attached to them. my school was 300 acres large here in massachusetts. expandon is how do we the practices so everyone in a public school setting can get them? this goes back to my proposal. a circularcreate economy where everyone has the opportunity to have a chance to. -- has a chance to win. we need to educate for alternative solutions and we should have policy in place. every seven to 10 years, sending people back to schools to get re-scaled and up-skilled to all

be successful. you go through the vocational program and after that, you realize that maybe you want to change your goals and go back to school. you are much more effective. this is an example of the success in terms of an economy where people go to school for period of time, go into the field and work, and after seven to 10 years, go back to school again, so they are constantly reveling to the economy. -- so there constantly reveling to the economy. supporting -- we need to provide support with services. payments tove people while they are in school. wang ceohard

c-span's live coverage continues with bernie sanders at 1:00, at 5:00 president trump much is the evangelicals for trump coalition event in miami and at 530 on c-span two, senator amy klobuchar is in cedar racket -- rapids. joe biden is in iowa and tom steyer is in waterloo, iowa. watch on c-span, c-span two, or watch online. continues. host: c-span viewers know stephen moore, a fellow at the heritage