Is Amazon Training Its Workers or Creating a College Alternative?

Amazon’s recent announcement that it will provide job training and apprenticeship opportunities to its workers should be received as good news for American colleges and universities. That’s because many of the fastest-growing and highest-paying sectors of the economy demand highly skilled technical workers, but not necessarily college-educated workers. Yet, absent sufficient opportunities for technical training and apprenticeships, colleges and universities are being asked to be the primary site for job training. If more employers follow Amazon’s lead, four-year colleges and universities can be liberated from this burden and focus once again on their primary mission: liberal education and basic research in the arts and sciences.

-- response by WWU's Johann Neem