13 Predictions for Technical Education in 2025

As 2024 comes to a close, it’s time for our annual predictions episode! 

What trends will shape technical education, industry, and workforce development in the year to come?

This week, Matt dives into the most pressing topics for 2025: from AI in education, to economic and workforce trends, to new technologies to keep an eye on. With 13 predictions grounded in data, this episode will get you ready for the year to come.

Listen to learn:

• Why applied AI is set to dominate STEM education in 2025
• The surprising ways EV training and infrastructure will evolve
• What manufacturing contraction could mean for technical colleges and workforce development
• Why skilled trades might thrive even in a shifting economy
• How flexible degree programs are reshaping higher education

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Music.

Matt Kirchner: 0:08

Well, it is the end of the year 2024 is almost behind us, and it is hard for me to believe that we are heading into another great and incredible year in technical education, we've had so much fun this year on The TechEd Podcast, so many guests who have taught us so many interesting things, made so many predictions themselves about the future. And this episode is reflecting a little bit on everything we've learned, and as we do every single year here at The TechEd Podcast, thinking about what is going to happen in the world of STEM and technical education in the year to come? Yes, it is our 2025 predictions episode, something we do every year here at The TechEd Podcast. We start by reflecting a little bit on the prior year, talking about the predictions we made a year ago and how we did and then we dive into what is going to happen in 2025 so what does the future hold for technical education? We will get into that in just a moment. But before we do How did we do on our predictions in 2024 we actually had eight predictions altogether that we made for you a year ago, and I am going to review every single one of them. If you listen to this episode before you know, we score every single prediction on a scale of one to five. So one means it was a total miss. Five means, oh, my goodness, we nailed it. And of course, the numbers in between tell us about how close we were on each individual prediction. So let's go with our 2024 predictions, the predictions we made a year ago. Again, there were eight of them. The first one was that curriculum, e learning and hands on training in the world of electric vehicles was going to be a key topic in the year 2024 Well, we gave ourselves four stars on this one, I can tell you, certainly living here in the Midwest, spending a lot of time, particularly in the state of Michigan, where EV is an incredibly hot topic, it was the talk of the entire state of Michigan and the Midwest, and really all over the United States. When we talked a year ago, we had just finished up a technical work group meeting in Detroit, Michigan talking about certifications in EV manufacturing. Tremendous excitement there and from there, this topic has flourished. Many, many schools, many, many technical colleges, many, many community colleges and our K 12 districts looking at how we implement EV learning into technical education. We're going to talk more about EV a little later when we get to our predictions for next year. But for now, we're giving ourselves four stars on this one. There were a lot of moving pieces, especially politically at the national level, that had, I think, an impact on investment in the way that people were thinking about EV, that's all behind us. We have a clear path to the future. Four stars on that particular prediction. We also talked about the fact that we were at the dawn of major disruption in higher education, that we're just at the beginning of this huge sea change in higher education. We talked last year about the enrollment clip, the fact that demographics don't necessarily favor higher education, especially our four year universities, and that they need to innovate again. We're going to talk more about that as we get into predictions for next year. But absolutely, I spent time at the Alliance for innovation and transformation in higher education. In Phoenix, Arizona, was actually a keynote speaker on one day at that particular conference. And I will tell you that the world is alive with innovation and higher education. More great things to come. Four stars on that prediction. Number Three from last year, by the end of 2024 at least 1/3 of school districts, 50% of technical colleges, and 50% colleges and 50% of engineering programs will have concrete plans to implement AI curriculum. Four stars here as well. That's a little bit anecdotal. There's not a lot of necessarily third party data to be able to support this. But I can tell you, as someone who travels all over the United States meeting with K 12 educators, Community Technical College leaders and university chancellors, provosts, deans and so on. Everybody is talking about and has plans to implement some version of artificial intelligence learning into their curriculum. Absolutely a rock star hit on that particular prediction. Four stars for that one. So far so good. Four stars on all three of our first three predictions, our fourth one, almost halfway through last year's predictions, more than 50% of educators, including teachers, instructors, deans and staff, will be actively using artificial intelligence in their day to day jobs. I saw an interesting study from CNBC. This was earlier this year, all the way back in June, and believe it or not by the middle of this year, by the middle of 2024 it said 46% of teachers and 48% of students saying they were using chat GPT, at least as just one example, at least every single week. So if we were by the middle of this year at 46% of teachers using those types of platforms. A generative AI, in this case, chatgpt. No doubt we hit more than 50% in the second half of the year. We gave ourselves five full stars on that prediction, all right. Prediction number five last year, forward thinking educational institutions will make major changes in how students experience learning in the age of artificial intelligence. Now here, here was the thinking last year, is that we're going to be using AI more and more in the classroom. We're going to have more personalized learning programs. We're going to be matching curriculum with where a student is in their predict particular educational pathway. We only gave ourselves three stars on this. There's a lot of talk around those types of advancements, I've got to tell you that everybody is thinking about them. Everybody is finding new ways to implement them. I had a conversation earlier this week about a school district that's utilizing Khan Academy and providing personalized learning plans to every single student. So I would say, I would say I was almost tempted to say four or five stars when we say forward thinking educate educational institutions would be making major changes in how students experience their learning. I guess it really depends on how we define forward thinking. Some of them, way out in front, have already done this many more thinking about it. Three stars on that particular prediction. All right. Number six. Number Six related to precision agriculture, as our audience knows we are totally changing the way that we prepare the soil, the way that we see, the way that we irrigate, the way that we fertilize, the way that we harvest, the way that we manage livestock, all of these things in the world of agriculture. And so we predicted that edge to cloud, edge to cloud technology and precision agriculture was going to drive all kinds of learning platforms, like several that I saw a year ago when I was at a CTE. Well, we gave ourselves four stars. I will tell you that we're really, really interested in what is taking place in terms of teaching autonomous farming, in terms of teaching how we take various attachments, cedars, irrigators and so on, using GPS, using telemetry, and teaching autonomous farming. So I would tell you, and if you were at a c t this year, of course, an A C T being the Association for career and technical education, they're showing San Antonio, you know that we are seeing some really cool advancements in how we're bringing precision egg into the classroom. Four stars on that Prediction number seven, we're only two away from being done with our list of 2024. Predictions is that we will see way more formalization in the way that industrial employers are delivering learning to their employees. And the truth of the matter is, we gave ourselves three stars here. I think we're starting to see more and more of that, but it really depends on how the industrial employer is looking at industrial training. So I saw a study recently that was actually performed by one of our internal teams. And here's what it found. It found that for those companies that had an individual or a team of people responsible specifically for training, in other words, that was their key responsibility. For those companies, 92% of them were utilizing formalized training systems to train their employees, right? And then, when we looked at the companies that maybe had a person that had a lot of hats to wear, they were responsible for a lot of different things. In those particular cases, only 5.4% of those companies had implemented a formalized training program. There's a lesson there for industrial employers, and that is, if you want to be serious about training, if you want to be serious about closing the gap in skilled talent in your company, you have to have somebody dedicated to that effort. If it's somebody's afterthought, if it's just another responsibility that somebody has on the list, probably not likely to be very successful in that particular endeavor. So if you want to have a formalized industrial training program where you're actually delivering learning inside the four walls of your manufacturing operation to your employees, you've got to have a specific group of people that are focused on that. Because of this, we only gave ourselves three stars. And this prediction, we are seeing those companies that are going all in creating these formalized industrial training programs. But for the vast majority of companies across the United States of America, they have a long, long way to go. All right. Our last Prediction number eight last year was that employers will actively recruit and promote those who hold third party credentials and micro credentials, like these certifications or credentials from the likes of MSSC nocti, the smart automation certification Alliance, creating certifications, third party certifications in manufacturing and other endeavors for students to earn and then demonstrate to an employer or to another educator that they have certain competencies. Well, we certainly saw tremendous advancements in this space. I think we have a long way to go in terms of employers recognizing the huge value that these types of certifications have and understanding what the competencies are that. Behind them. So when they're hiring this talent, they recognize that students have capabilities and things like basic operations, advanced operations, robot operation and programming industry, 4.0 IIoT, smart manufacturing and so on. I just one example. I saw a letter not too long ago from Amazon, actually their Chief Strategy Manager to a individual in a Department of Workforce in the state here in the Midwest. In fact, I'll just say it was Leo, the Department of Labor and economic opportunity in Michigan. And this individual from Amazon drafted a letter specifically talking about, in this case, the certifications from the smart automation certification Alliance, and stating right in that letter how much a company like Amazon, the second, I believe, largest company in the world, values certifications like those from soccer. So we're seeing larger companies finally recognizing this huge value that third party certifications have. Still have a long way to go. I would say they're still not household names in the world of manufacturing, distribution, advanced manufacturing and so on. So we gave ourselves three stars. So that's how we did in 2024 in our scores respectively, four stars, four stars, four stars, five stars, three stars, four stars, three stars and three stars. That is an average of 3.75 on a scale of one to five, I'll take 3.75 not a perfect year, but not a bad one, either. We did a pretty darn good job looking out at the landscape last year and figuring out what was going to happen in the world of semi technical education here in 2024 so what will the future hold for 2025 we have a few more predictions than usual this year. Actually, we have 13 altogether, believe it or not, so 13 total predictions. We'll get through them relatively quickly. But here is what we believe here at The TechEd Podcast, is going to happen in technical and STEM education in the year to come. The first several predictions actually compete with each other a little bit conflict with each other a little bit, and if I don't put these into perspective, might be a little bit confusing. So as we go through these first three we see some trends happening that I think are going to be really interesting to watch. They're not all pushing in the same direction. And so as these trends converge, it's going to be interesting to see how all of this comes together number one in the world of manufacturing. We are going to see, and continue to see more and more on shoring we've seen this the last several years, with manufacturing production coming back to the point of consumption, and as we've talked about many times on this podcast, you know, we went through this thing called COVID, and all of a sudden everybody had an understanding of how important our supply chain was. When we could get what we wanted, when we wanted it, at a price we wanted to pay. It was really, really easy to take the supply chain and to take manufacturing for granted, and we went through this period of time where we couldn't get that, where to get the kind of basic staples that we needed to live our daily lives. In some cases, those products weren't immediately available. In other cases, they were incredibly expensive. And so now everybody has an appreciation for supply chain. We have other things that are driving this. We're seeing things that are happening in micro processors and foreign reliance, and others relying on foreign manufacturing, affecting everything from inflation to national defense, you know, all kinds of spaces within our economy. And so we are seeing more and more of a focus through things like the chips and science act and elsewhere, to bring manufacturing closer and closer to the point of consumption. We interviewed earlier this year Barbara humpton, who is the CEO of Siemens USA, and talked a lot about how this creates huge opportunities for people considering careers in manufacturing. In fact, Barbara said this is the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of this manufacturing Renaissance. As more and more manufacturing seeks its point of consumption, more and more manufacturing comes back to the United States, it's going to be a great time. Will continue to be a great time for American manufacturing. So we are expecting more on shoring in 2025 that is Prediction number one, a factor that's really going to affect that. I believe now that we have some certainty and some clarity around what the next administration is going to be, who is going to lead the United States of America, there's going to be a lot of effort, a lot of focus and a lot of concern about what we call the Trump tariffs. We're already seeing increased tariff pressure on the likes of Canada and Mexico and China and some of our European manufacturing partners, especially right now, in the automotive market. But the discussions around tariffs are going to spread across the entire economy. We're hearing numbers as big as 25% being thrown about in terms of the possibility for tariffs in the coming year, meaning that products coming into the United States are going to be tariff the federal government is going to collect basically a fee for bringing products into the United States. States that has all kinds of implications for manufacturing. Now how much of this is policy? In other words, how much of this is really going to happen, and how much of it is positioning and creating negotiating leverage to maybe ask some of these partners to do more in certain areas, immigration has been a big topic. So how much of this actually comes to pass. I think we still have to wait and see, but I think in either event, it's going to mean more domestic manufacturing. So it really compounds that previous discussion around onshoring that was already happening. What happens with the tariffs in the threat of tariffs is going to have a huge impact on manufacturing. What this is going to do for educators is it's going to even continue to drive up the need for skilled talent in advanced manufacturing. So in terms of what the future holds for our education programs, I'm really, really bullish on the need for advanced manufacturing talent. Prediction number two, the Trump tariffs will have a significant impact, or at least the threat of those tariffs will have a significant impact on manufacturing and the supply chain here in the United States of America. Now we have something that kind of pushes in the other direction, as I suggested, as we began our discussion about 2025 so we've got onshoring, we've got the threat of tariffs. These are going to promote manufacturing here in the United States. The other trend that we are seeing and the prediction that we are making is that the manufacturing economy and the fact that it is contracting right now will be a huge story in the first half of 2025 this is something that nobody is talking about now. We were on to this early. Think our audience knows I spent a lot of time in the world of private equity. We look at a lot of different companies. We look at a lot of manufacturing companies. I sit on the board of manufacturing companies. I'm invested in several manufacturing companies. Talk to a lot of people in manufacturing. One of the unwritten stories of the second half of 2024 leading into the election, was that the manufacturing economy was contracting, and we were starting to hear about softness in manufacturing, volume across the economy. Interesting article. Finally, the elections over, things are starting to settle down. It's interesting. What you learn after all of that craziness moves out of the way. There was a great article in the Wall Street Journal, of course, one of my favorite periodicals, on December 2. It was written by Ed Frankel and is talking about us factory activity. It said it contracted as demand remained weak. That was the that was the headline was that US factory activity was contracting as demand was weakening. It said manufacturing activity in the month of November of 2024 contracted for an eighth straight month. Eighth straight month. Now we weren't seeing any of this as we were watching the news in the second half of last year, nobody was talking about it. I knew it was happening. I've got several witnesses who were sitting in meetings when I was saying, Look, we're seeing softness in the manufacturing economy. Now, everybody else is waking up to this. There's a metric that I watch every single month. It's called the Institute for Supply Chain management's purchasing manager index. I've been watching that metric for decade upon decade, probably 25 years or so that I looking at it. It works this way. It looks at what is happening in the manufacturing economy by you doing surveys and gathering data. Is the manufacturing economy expanding? Is a contracting and it puts it, puts it on a scale of zero to 150 means it's even, in other words, if there's no change that the manufacturing economy is neither expanding or contracting, a score of 50 would be reflected in that index. Now, if we are at a point where manufacturing activity is expanding, that number is going to be higher than 50. So we see numbers sometimes like 5354 55 that means we have a really frothy and exciting manufacturing economy. Manufacturers are growing. Manufacturing companies are ordering more from other manufacturing companies. Consumers are consuming and creating demand for manufactured products and so on. A number less than 50 tells you the manufacturing economy is contracting, and the further away from 50 in either direction, the more pronounced that particular trend is. So let's look at what what's happened in the last several months. The Institute for Supply Chain Management said earlier this year, I think it was toward the end of November that their purchasing manager index of manufacturing activity was actually 48.4 I guess it was at the end of November, up from 46.5 in October, right? But it was still contracting. In other words, we were at 48.4 50 means there's no contraction. We are below 50. What that tells us is that there is a slowdown happening in manufacturing. And the truth is that we're going to see these trends and these predictions contracting. We're going to see onshoring. We're going to see certainly more interest in domestic manufacturing as we see the impact of potential tariffs, but we're also seeing a slowdown in the manufacturing economy, and how these first three predictions converge upon themselves is going to tell us a lot about what happens in manufacturing and as it relates to. And for students coming out of advanced manufacturing programs from technical education. The future remains to be seen. But I think all three of these predictions are things that we are going to see in the year 2025 as a result of that, the contraction in manufacturing, we are going to see manufacturing layoffs in 2025 we've already seen some in 2024 I think as the realization of the contracting manufacturing economy starts to settle in on people across manufacturing, we're going to see some downsizing. We're going to going to see these unfortunately, they're inevitable in manufacturing. As manufacturers adjust their their workforce in the age of fluctuating demand, we first encourage manufacturers to think twice before you announce a layoff or decide to lay your team off. In other words, we think about how hard we have worked to create a manufacturing workforce in the last several years, the last decade, really think twice before you cut costs just for the sake of profit, because it's not going to be long. I've been through many, many manufacturing cycles. They don't last long. When we do get a contraction, we usually bounce back relatively quickly. You don't want to put yourself in the same challenge you were in a year or two, a year or two or three or five ago, where you couldn't find people. Hang on to your great people. Hang on to the great people in manufacturing as long as you can at the same time. Look, I've been in the position where you're for whatever reason, you just can't afford to continue to maintain the entire workforce. I was in a business one time where half of our our largest customer, cut our business in half, and at that point, it's just unsustainable to be able to continue to maintain and retain your entire workforce. So recognizing that layoffs are going to be inevitable, recognizing that there may be some downsizing in manufacturing. Let's talk about a few things. First of all, manufacturing. When that happened, will have the finger pointed to it yet again. People will be saying, Why would you go to work in manufacturing when you're just going to get laid off? Well, you know, as Public Enemy said back in the 1990s and actually saw Public Enemy in concert back in the 1980s might have even better. 90s might have even been the 80s. Don't believe the hype, right? When you start to hear all of this talk about, well, manufacturing isn't a great career choice because of the contraction. Don't believe the hype. I It drives me crazy when I hear people say things like, I want to work in technology, because if you're working in manufacturing, you're too likely to be laid off. That drives me nuts. This is one of the reasons. Perhaps it's one of the reasons, according to a survey, but a Deloitte of 12,000 young people that 80% of them said they wanted to work in and around cutting edge technology. And anecdotally, many of those think that that means working in the tech sector. It doesn't always technology careers exist in manufacturing as well. But let's talk about for a moment whether this paradigm of your job is safer in tech than it is in manufacturing is actually true and is actually accurate. Tech crunch.com if he's checked out that website, they track layoffs and in just in 2024 according to them, Cisco, Apple, infinity and Dell Intel, Salesforce, eBay, even Microsoft. Several articles, by the way, just in the last week that Google may be planning layoffs in 2025 The truth is that, yeah, we have layoffs in manufacturing. We have layoffs across the economy, including in the tech sector. So to be fair, tech companies can be trimming certain parts of their workforce while they're expanding in other parts of their workforce. So just because they have a net layoff or a layoff in one sector doesn't necessarily mean that those are widespread. But what we're trying to dispel is this idea that your job is safer in tech than it is in manufacturing. I don't think there's much of any truth to that. The truth is that if your company, you're working for goes through a contracting economy, or for whatever reason, demand for their products are contracting or decreasing, or for some reason, they over built capacity for a trend that didn't come to pass, you're gonna see movement in the workforce. You're gonna see some people unfortunately, possibly losing their job. But the truth is that your job isn't any safer in tech than it is in manufacturing. Let's not point the figure finger at manufacturers. Also. Keep in mind that over the course of the next 10 years, regardless of what happens in the next 12 months, we are going to need more talented manufacturing so as you hear people saying, well, you know, manufacturing contracting, we're seeing fewer, you know, fewer people working in manufacturing. The long term trend for manufacturing super, super bullish. According to a study by Deloitte, 3.8 million manufacturing jobs will be created between 2024 this year in 2033 and 1.9 million of these could remain unfilled due to the skills gap. So we have a lot of room for manufacturing jobs. What we want to do is take the long view of this and continue to create talent. So as some of these trends, like onshoring, which are not going to slow down, create more demand for manufacturing talent that we have a talented workforce created by our technical colleges, our community colleges, our engineering programs, our high schools, that is. Ready for the jobs of the manufacturing future. So a long way through Prediction number four, which is that we are going to see layoffs in manufacturing, I believe, because of this contraction that's taking place in the manufacturing sector. But in spite of that, lots and lots and lots of reason for optimism. Prediction number five for 2025 Tech College enrollment will skew up over the course of the next year. Part of that is going to be driven by people who are maybe dislocated from their current job. So if I'm looking for a new position, I'm looking to upskill myself. Where do those students tend to go? They tend to find their way back to our Technical and Community Colleges. And in times of economic slowdown, I can tell you that that is when our Technical and Community colleges are doubling down on making sure they are training people for the next age of technology, the next age of employment. So for those of us working in technical colleges and community colleges, expect enrollments to start to tweak up a little bit, and you can probably also expect maybe your average age to tweak up a little bit as well. The average age of your student in recent years, many colleges have actually seen average ages drop a little bit as the workforce has become more sustainable. As more people have been working, they tend to skew towards students coming out of high school. So that's Prediction number five, technical college enrollment is going to skew up, and the average age will also skew up. Prediction number six is along exactly those same lines, and that is that our funding at a national level, because of this, is going to start to trend toward dislocated workers. We'll hear things like boot boot camps that many of us are familiar with from when we've gone through some downsizing areas in the past. Rapid upskilling for new types of jobs, third party certifications are also going to be a big trend. We're already seeing some of this. And many of you follow the what happens with WIOA, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. According to one source I follow, the National Association of workforce boards, they actually wrote a great article last month. It was entitled, quote, leaders in the Senate and the House have reached a bipartisan agreement to reauthorize the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, and they've added what they call a stronger workforce for America Act. My friend Paul Perkins, who has been a guest on The TechEd Podcast. He's the president of amateur he's been very, very involved with the National Association of workforce boards and the Workforce Board in Indiana, he told me, not too long ago, pointed to the a SW, a stronger workforce for America Act recently, as we suggested, promoted and voted on and enacted by the Senate and the House inside aswa, it talks about increasing the percentage of funds put into short term training. So we're already seeing at a national level, more and more we owe a funding going toward training, a renewed interest in the workforce board. We We owe a funding as it relates to skilled labor and to manufacturing. So we're going to see more and more funding moving toward dislocated workers, boot camps, rapid upskilling, short term training. So keep your eyes on that particular trend. That is, Trend number six, Prediction number seven here on The TechEd Podcast, on our list of predictions for 2025 skilled trades opportunities will be largely immune from this trend we're seeing in manufacturing. So we've talked about not just trends toward manufacturing coming back to the United States, some softness in manufacturing, what that means for Technical and Community Colleges, what that means for funding at a national and state level for boot camps and upskilling, rapid upskilling third party certifications. When we think about that slowdown, though, the skilled trades areas like electricians and plumbers and HVAC technicians are going to be immune, I believe, from the slowdown in this trend. There was an article in Forbes magazine in October that references research by the National Student Clearing House Research Center, and it says the number of students enrolled in vocational focused community colleges, believe it or not, increased 16% from 22 to 23 and this goes back a year or so, but fields, including HVAC, repair and installation, are seeing major upticks in young people pursuing these careers. It says seeing huge demand. And this is from another article that I read in The Wall Street Journal, actually seeing huge demand. There is a trend of private equity firms, believe it or not, buying up plumbing, HVAC and electrical contractors, turning small business owners that owned those contracting companies into millionaires, and literally doing it overnight. So we're starting to see interest from the standpoint of investors getting into this space. Why are they getting into this space? Because they don't see any slowdown whatsoever. So this particular trend. I'm an electrician. I'm a sole proprietor. Maybe I've got a couple folks working for me. There are private equity groups at the national level and beyond, who are doing role. Roll ups, what we call roll ups, buying smaller companies, turning them into a larger company. And as we mentioned, turning those business owners who formerly own those businesses into millionaires. But again, it speaks to this incredible demand that we have for the skilled trades. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics is actually predicting a growth rate nationwide for HVAC technicians and mechanics and installers over the course of the next nine years, believe it or not, is going to be growing at 6% every single year. So in a space where we have fewer and fewer people necessarily working in that space because of retirements, because though of the aging workforce, demand for those positions is going to grow at a 6% rate. In fact, by one estimate that I saw recently, 37,700 new openings in HVAC every single year, on average through the year 2032, so for anybody that's in that space that say, HVAC, technician, electrician, a plumber, working in other areas of the skilled trades probably a little less disruption for you than what we might see in the space of manufacturing. So so don't expect that trend to necessarily hit skilled trades. So our prediction number seven, skilled trades opportunities will be largely immune from the trend in advanced manufacturing as we see a little bit of a slowdown in that space. All right, so now we're going to talk a little bit about this dislocated worker funding. So we talked about the fact that we're going to see more funding into creating programs for those that are dislocated from manufacturing. We're going to see less of an impact on the skilled trades, but continued impact of this trend in manufacturing. What this is going to mean is that dislocated worker funding is not only going to be focused toward more short term training is going to be focused on short term training around advancing and emerging technologies. So in this particular case, we are talking about training people for careers in automation, automation technicians, electromechanical technicians, people working in the world of robotics, of robotic integration and even machine learning and artificial intelligence. So look for this dislocated worker funding. Certainly it's going to fund people finding opportunities in traditional spaces within manufacturing, but particularly in some of these emerging technologies, like the ones that we just mentioned. So Trend number eight, dislocated worker funding is also not only is it going to rise, but it's going to skew toward advancing technologies. And as we're thinking about the future of education, we want to make sure that our educational programs are aligned with those trends. Okay, let's talk a little bit about higher education in general, we are going to see continued disruption in higher education, as I mentioned in our 2024 trends, we expected disruption in education. We saw it. We are going to continue to see huge disruption in the way that higher educators are thinking about education. And one of the examples that I want to offer is the flexible degree, like the one at the University of Wisconsin, stout, their automation leadership degree. And when we think about disruption in the world of higher education, especially four year universities, this is providing the perfect example for how education is going to be disrupted higher educators four year universities, as we all know, the macroeconomic trends do not necessarily favor that space, and the demographic trends don't necessarily favor that space. So we've got rising costs of higher education at the same time, in some cases, diminishing returns in terms of the value of a degree. And we hear people argue about, well, this is, you know, this is the disparity between if you get a four year degree, you're going to be able to make X amount of money more than a two year degree. That's certainly true in certain spaces, but it's also not true in a lot of other particular disciplines within higher education. So understanding that, on balance, the benefit and the value of a four year degree is starting to narrow over some of the other educational options that our students are able to take when they are completing their high school coursework is going to demand even more innovation in higher education. We've talked about the UW Stout degree in the past. You receive a full 88 credits toward 120 credit baccalaureate degree just by earning third party certifications from the smart automation certification Alliance and transferring to credits from a technical or community college that has a transfer agreement in place with the University of Wisconsin. Style. Think about that. You're more than three quarters, or, I guess, almost three quarters through a four year degree without ever paying a penny of university tuition, without ever setting foot on a university campus. And what's more in that particular case is you can complete your coursework remotely. You never have to leave your hometown, and you can earn a baccalaureate degree in automation leadership, one of the most in demand competencies in all of advanced manufacturing. Tax rate, while we talk often, like we said, about how the demographics are changing in education, and this is just a perfect example of how education and higher education is going to change in the next year. So we're expecting not just more disruption in higher education. This particular prediction, Prediction number nine, is that we will see more flexible degree programs, like the example that's been set by the University of Wisconsin Stout. Keep your eye on that number 10. We are going to continue to see the lines blurred between what a technical college degree and what a university degree looks like. I can tell you, I talked to a lot of chancellors, Provost vice presidents, other leaders in higher education in our four year institutions and beyond, they are all looking at, how do we take our coursework and divide it up into smaller sections where people certainly can continue to earn a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, PhD. We have a lot of doctorates of education in the world of technical education that nothing wrong with that pathway. But we are seeing universities now finding ways to chunk up the work that they have, the coursework that they have, into more bite sized pieces, to reach employers where they are, to reach the working Americans, where they are people that already have a career maybe want to go back to a four year university and brush up on a specific area that they're not particularly proficient in. So we're seeing universities starting to chunk up their coursework and their delivery options in ways that technical colleges and community colleges have been doing for years. Again, that's just a result of the drivers happening demographically and economically here in the United States. So while that is happening, while that's happening in our four year degree programs, I will also tell you that you're going to see technical colleges looking to be more and more creative as well, in maybe even closing the gap between what a traditional associates degree looks like, what a traditional baccalaureate degree looks like, and maybe going an extra mile and providing students more content, more learning opportunities to continue to close that gap between a two year and a four year education, I can tell you kind of privately, that I am seeing some really, really interesting innovation that's happening in our Technical and Community Colleges, things that will be announced over the course of the first half of 2025 that are really going to surprise some people. So remember that you heard it here first, that some more of a more of our technical colleges, more of our community colleges, will be figuring out, how do they look, in some cases, even more like four year universities. All right. On to Prediction number 11. We're closing in on our 13 predictions for 2025 here on The TechEd Podcast, Prediction number 11 is all around energy education. Energy is going to be a key education issue here in 2025 earlier this year, we had Mary snap, who is the Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for Microsoft, on The TechEd Podcast. Mary, of course, talking about a number of things, including the $3.3 billion investment that Microsoft is making in my home state, here in southeast Wisconsin, data centers consume a huge, huge, huge amount of energy. Let me just give you a couple statistics I found interesting as I was doing some studying over the course of last summer, the energy required to train one large language model like chat, G, P, T, is the equivalent of the amount of energy consumed by 130 homes in just one year, the amount of energy required to generate an image using artificial intelligence, just one image would charge your smartphone from zero to 100% lots and lots of interesting ways of looking at energy. But because of this, we are going to find, we're going to need to find as many sources of energy as possible. The Age of AI, the age of data is not reducing our need for energy right now, it is increasing our need for energy. And for my money, the more environmentally friendly those energy sources can be, the better. So one of the things that we have our eyes on here at The TechEd Podcast is what's happening in the nuclear space. In fact, watch for in 2025 one of our episodes with a senior leader of a company called Whole tech, which is doing some really cool things in terms of recommissioning nuclear reactors all over the United States. So we spent, you know, the last half century decommissioning our nuclear reactors. Now we are starting to recommission them, bring that energy power back online as a source of clean energy, as nuclear technology has changed, as the safety around nuclear has changed, as public perceptions around nuclear have changed, and also as what we call modular nuclear technology continues to come online. Don't have a lot of time for that topic here, but. But this whole push toward more and more energy sources is going to have a resulting impact in technical and STEM education, in the need for people who understand these energy sources, who understand how to derive energy from alternative energy, who understand the process control. Because in many cases, the process control required an energy mirrors, in some cases, what you might see in a typical food production facility and so on. So we're gonna have more and more training around process control. For those of you not familiar, those are things like level and flow, like temperature, like pressure, like SCADA, like PID control and so on. It's a whole different aspect of process control, and we're going to need the technicians, and we're going to need the skilled talent to be able to run these facilities. So you're going to see demand on the part of energy producers for talent that understands how to maintain the facilities that produce this energy. And it's not going to be just necessarily in pockets, but with the advent of some of these new sources of energy. We're going to see that all over the United States. So watch for that trend in 2025 Prediction number 11, energy education will be a key focus across the entire country and throughout the entire 12 months of 2025 our 12th prediction, and this kind of piles on a prediction that we have 2024, and that is the focus on electric vehicles is not going to go away. During the last administration, this was a huge focus, huge incentives for purchasing electric vehicles, huge grants that were being writing, written in that space, for people, for companies, creating capacity for electric vehicles. That is not going away, but it is going to evolve. And we're going to see a major focus on training for EV manufacturing, EV certifications for those workers working in EV manufacturing, continuing to focus on battery technology and a focus on infrastructure for electric vehicles. So let's talk about this a little bit much of EV manufacturing. First of all, so manufacturing electric vehicles isn't a whole lot different from a typical advanced manufacturing facility. We still have to learn all the same Mechatronics technologies, basic AC, DC, electric relay control, motor control, motion control, programmable action controllers, lean manufacturing, the list goes on, but we have to add to that in the world of Ev, an understanding of EV technology, of battery technology, of Ev, engine fundamentals, and understanding all of those competencies is going to be really important throughout the supply chain, particularly for tier one, tier two and tier three, EV manufacturing facilities. Look for innovation here, too early for me to tell a couple of things that we see going on that will be announced in 2025 but around curriculum, around certifications, around the ability to train people for EV manufacturing, some big things are going to happen in the year 2025 we're also going to see more of a focus on efficient production. So like any new manufacturing space, opportunities will abound for improvement in productivity, efficiency and quality. We're going to need a generation of workforce that continues to understand how to drive constraints and challenges and issues out of manufacturing processes. We're going to see innovation around addressing concerns regarding the range per charge on electric vehicles. So a lot of the reticence that you hear from people is like, Well, I'm just, I just, you know, I can't wait to charge up a vehicle. What if I What if I run out of energy, run out of power? What if my battery goes dead when I'm on my way to fill in the blank, I don't have time to stop for two hours to charge battery, so on and so forth. That's a problem that EV is going to have to figure out and solve if they're going to increase demand for their products, we expect that they are going to figure that problem out, and they are going to solve for it. Certainly lighter vehicle, lighter battery technology and other one of the concerns is just the impact of a vehicle on our nation's infrastructure. Electric vehicles tend to be a lot heavier and put a lot more wear and tear on our roads than a traditional internal combustion engine vehicle, and so we're going to see focus on light, lighter weight battery technology. Finally, one major constraint in the world of EV is charging infrastructure. So we touched on this just a moment ago. If I'm traveling in an electric vehicle, how am I going to be able to charge that conveniently and charge it quickly? It goes to touches everything from what are the locations for the for the charging facilities, accessibility, reliability, continued maintenance of charging infrastructure, implementation and installation of charging technology, all of these are constraints for EV adoption. So until we can solve for those problems, people are going to be reticent, especially people who aren't our early adopters, are going to be reticent to add that technology and to get excited about electric vehicles. So we're going to see a lot of focus on that particular space. Well, it turns out the CEO of one of the leading, probably the leading, electric vehicle brands, might just have a. Little bit of influence at the federal level, if we've been following the news lately at all, we recognize that Elon Musk is going to have a huge amount of influence over the next administration, and the degree to which this whole issue around infrastructure gets heard and addressed remains to be seen. But here at The TechEd Podcast, we think that EV and the EV market is going to put a huge focus on solving for that. What does that mean for education? Well, of course, a lot of this EV technology, the installation of the charging systems, the maintenance of the charging systems, accessibility locations, all of these are going to require talent that has the ability to install and service EV charging infrastructure. So expect that to be a key demand from employers, and expect our technical community colleges, high schools and universities to be working to figure out how we solve for that demand. Number 13, we're at our last prediction for the year of 2025, number 13, and it's a build on a previous prediction from last year as well, teaching applied artificial intelligence is going to be all the talk in 2025 and we're already seeing some really, really cool things. We've talked about here on The TechEd Podcast. Had Mike Bigley from the White House School District on last year talking about the advent of teaching applied artificial intelligence at his emerging technology lab that is a system that is a location and an experiment that is absolutely setting the standard for how we teach artificial intelligence, how we teach what we talk here on the on The TechEd Podcast about all the time, the edge to cloud continuum, Smart Sensor, smart devices, talking to control systems, computer networks and data collectors talking to the cloud, cloud based software that is analyzing in real time data that's coming from the edge, sensors and and devices predicting the future, creating all kinds of opportunities in the world of artificial intelligence. We can teach applied AI whole bunch of different ways. We can put autonomous vehicles in a classroom, small versions of autonomous vehicles, teaching it that way, autonomous mobile robots, robots that predict their own future failure and order their own replacement parts before the failure ever happens. We can teach it on drones, unmanned ground vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, where we're teaching things like sensors and data acquisition and telemetry and GPS, all part of the edge to cloud continuum, teaching AI in general and this, and it's not just chat GPT, right? Chat GPT is AI, but AI is not chat GPT. It is so much more, and finding ways to teach that in an exciting, applied way. In 2025, of all the predictions that we're making today, and we're making some pretty big ones, this is the one that I'm most confident in. This is the one that I am most excited about is, how are we going to teach applied under artificial intelligence, throughout stem and technical education, some really, really smart people working on some really smart ways to teach really smart technology. It's going to be really, really fun to watch. The other thing that's going to be fun to watch is how the year 2025, rolls out across stem and technical education, and here at The TechEd Podcast, one final prediction that isn't on our list of 13, but it's the one we end with every year, and that is regardless of what happens, regardless of how accurate these predictions are, we expect that they will be pretty accurate. One thing you can count on for sure is The TechEd Podcast will be here to bring you the best content in STEM education, the best content in technical education, to make sure that you, our audience, are connected to the people doing the most innovative things in industry and in education. It is going to be a great year for The TechEd Podcast. It's going to be a great year for STEM and technical education, and we can't wait to spend it with all of you. Thank you for joining us on this episode of The TechEd Podcast, where we think about the future and make our 13 predictions for STEM and technical education. Thank you for a wonderful 2024 and here's to an even better 2025 in STEM and TechEd. You.