One Trade School’s Path to Success
City Journal Audio
Manhattan Institute
4.8 • 615 Ratings
🗓️ 13 November 2019
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kay S. Hymowitz joins City Journal editor Brian Anderson to discuss Pennsylvania’s Williamson College of the Trades, a three-year school for young men offering a debt-free path to high-paying work—and the life skills to help them get there.
“Trade schools” have long had a stigma in American culture, but Williamson is no ordinary trade school: students wake up early to the sound of reveille and attend academic classes in coats and ties. As Hymowitz writes in City Journal’s autumn issue, “With its old-timey rituals, rigorous scheduling, and immersive culture, Williamson has a military-school feel.” But according to the students she interviewed, the prospect of a good-paying career makes the strict rules more than worth it.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the 10 Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal. |
| 0:05.7 | Joining me on the show today is Kayeimowitz. K. is the William E. Simon Fellow at the Manhattan |
| 0:11.0 | Institute and a longtime contributing editor at City Journal. Her latest piece in the magazine, |
| 0:16.7 | Trading Up, looks at a remarkable post-secondary trade school called Williamson College of the Trades, |
| 0:23.7 | located 20 miles outside Philadelphia. The school, enrolling around 300 students, all low-income boys, |
| 0:31.4 | provides a debt-free path to good jobs for kids who don't want to go the traditional four-year university route. |
| 0:39.6 | Though it's a small institution, a number of Williamson's alumni have graduated into the |
| 0:45.2 | big time for modest beginnings. Kayeimowitz had the opportunity to visit the school earlier this |
| 0:50.4 | year, and she was impressed with the students to say the least. You can find the full |
| 0:54.3 | essay trading up on our website and we'll link to it in the description. That's it for the |
| 0:59.5 | introduction. We'll take a quick break in the studio is Kayeimowitz. You can follow her on Twitter at Kayeimowitz. |
| 1:27.0 | Kay's essay for the autumn issue of City Journal is called Trading Up, |
| 1:30.3 | and it's about Pennsylvania's Williamson College of the Trades, |
| 1:34.3 | which is not too far from Philadelphia. |
| 1:37.3 | You can find the story in the magazine itself or on the City Journal website. |
| 1:41.3 | Kay, thanks very much for joining us. |
| 1:43.3 | My pleasure. Trade schools have long had a stigma around them, but Williamson College is a well-established |
| 1:51.0 | trade school and a remarkably successful one. |
| 1:55.0 | So maybe we can talk first just about the basics of the school. |
| 1:59.0 | What kind of students go there, how much does it cost, |
| 2:04.1 | what the academic outcomes look like, what kind of jobs the students get. |
| 2:08.5 | So let's start with that just to introduce listeners to this very unique institution. |
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