On Thursday, the Cleveland Browns broke ground on a new stadium in Brook Park. It will take years to build and will need thousands of workers — electricians, plumbers, ironworkers, carpenters, and HVAC technicians.
Ohio had better hope it can find them. Right now, it can't.
A new report from global real estate firm JLL found that by 2030, more than 2 million skilled trade jobs across the country could go unfilled — and the U.S. Department of Education puts the potential economic loss at $1 trillion a year. For every five workers retiring from construction and manufacturing, only two replacements enter the workforce.
Ohio is feeling that squeeze. Central Ohio is the economic engine of the state, with data centers, a growing semiconductor industry, and now a major stadium all demanding workers who can build, wire, and maintain.
Meanwhile, Ohio Senate Bill 1 is forcing public universities to cut any degree program that doesn't meet minimum enrollment targets. The law came with a hard deadline, requiring schools to notify the state last fall about programs on the chopping block.
Ohio State is dropping medieval and Renaissance studies. Toledo is cutting Spanish, religious studies, and seven other programs. Ohio University is eliminating Bachelor of Arts degrees in fields like chemistry and math. The University of Cincinnati is ending its music composition degree.
Some trimming of higher education makes sense. But Ohio is solving the wrong problem.
The real crisis is that not enough young Ohioans are choosing the trades. A master electrician can earn six figures. A licensed plumber can run their own business. A certified welder is in demand from Brook Park to the data centers in New Albany.
These are not backup careers. They are the careers Ohio's economy runs on and will run on well into the future.
Cutting college programs without equally investing in trade schools, apprenticeship programs, and vo-tech pathways is just budget-cutting dressed up as reform.
The Browns stadium will rise steel by steel and wire by wire over the next several years. Ohio should ask itself one simple question: Who is going to build it?
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