Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is proposing millions of dollars in federal stimulus money from the federal government be used to train students in vocational education.
DeSantis, speaking at a high school in Melbourne on Monday, said he was proposing $75 million for the creation of the “Get There Faster” initiative for current students and recent graduates to pursue areas of high demand and high skilled vocational education.
“The fact is, in this last generation, you have a lot of people who’ve gone deep into debt to go to these traditional universities to study things that don’t have as much application in the real world,” DeSantis said.
The program, which would be run by the state’s Department of Education, would be placed in the state’s budget during the upcoming legislative session from the federal money granted to Florida.
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DeSantis said one of the goals of the program would be to help eliminate the “stigma” of vocational education in Florida while helping the growing job market in the state.
“You’re not any better because you’re going to a university,” said the Governor, who himself has degrees from both Yale University and Harvard University Law School. “A lot of these folks who are doing it the career way and getting the vocational skills are doing financially well.”
DeSantis took time to once again give his administration credit for their response to the COVID pandemic and criticize the Biden administration for giving more money in assistance to states he says have higher unemployment numbers.
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“Your actually rewarding states that did some of these ineffective lockdowns that have caused a lot of problems and they’re doing that,” DeSantis said, naming specific states like California and New York during the news conference.
