Mike Rowe On The Broken Education System In The United States

Mike Rowe, host of Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs, sums up the interview below eloquently in the opening statement:

"If we are lending money that ostensibly we don't have to kids who have no hope of making it back in order to train them for jobs that clearly don't exist, I might suggest that we've gone around the bend a little bit."

Student loan debt, which is over $1 trillion in size, has recently surpassed credit cards as the most troubled debt category in America. The number of student loans over 90 days delinquent has risen to 11.8%.


"There is a real disconnect in the way that we educate vis-a-vis the opportunities that are available. You have - right now - about 3 million jobs that can't be filled," he says, talking about openings in traditional trades ranging from construction to welding to plumbing. "Jobs that typically parents' don't sit down with their kids and say, 'Look, if all goes well, this is what you are going to do.'"