Between 2021 and 2024, one-third of the skills needed for a typical job changed.
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While the Trump administration and its allies have spent the past year fighting campus culture wars, the bipartisan group says the battles over DEI and the so-called woke ideology are distracting policymakers from the urgent need to modernize the workforce in an era of rapid technological advancement.
On Wednesday, the Bipartisan Policy Center published a report titled “A Nation at Risk in a Nation in Action: The Case for a National Talent Strategy,” which provides a blueprint for how the federal government can work with education leaders, employers, local governments and other sectors to develop a strong pipeline of local talent prepared to meet current workforce needs.
The strategy is the work of the American Workforce Commission, which was established by the BPC in February 2025 in response to outdated laws governing higher education and widespread methods of preparing students for a job market that is facing major changes amid the growing influence of artificial intelligence.
Improving workforce development is also a priority for the Trump administration, which recently announced a $145 million increase in funding for scholarship programs and fought for the passage of Workforce Pell—which allows low-income students to use federal grants for temporary verification programs—this past summer.
“The key issues before us are whether the American people will be ready to take advantage of the ever-changing economy due to AI and demographic changes. We’re really trying to put out a fire about the urgency of these issues,” Margaret Spellings, president and CEO of BPC and secretary of education under former president George W. Bush, told Within Higher Ed.
“It is a fertile ground for bilateral cooperation,” he added. “In the culture war stuff, we all know which side people are playing for. But in terms of the effects of AI, I think we’re all a little fearful and a little optimistic.”
With 24 members from across government, academia, social services and industry, including co-chairs former Republican governor Bill Haslam of Tennessee and former Democratic governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, the commission has spent the past year identifying gaps in the nation’s talent pipeline and considering how the public and private sectors can work together to strengthen it.
The report identified declining enrollment and literacy rates, rising low employment rates for college graduates, and 43 million Americans who left college without a degree as other major kinks in the talent pipeline. It also noted that one-third of the skills needed for a typical job have changed between 2021 and 2024, and that as of late 2025, 57 percent of current US work hours could be automated with existing technology.
“As the gap widens between what people are learning and what the job market and society want, and as many leaders are distracted by priorities that are failing to serve the American people, the nation lacks a unified strategy that connects people to opportunity and the nation to a secure future,” reads the report. “The result is a situation where students, staff, and employers must bridge the gap at a time when transparency and efficiency are most important.”
The Blueprint
The commission program includes the following requirements:
- Creating a national talent council to work in partnership with governors, state labor boards and industry leaders, and using a talent database to ensure countries are investing in proven, high-impact strategies;
- Focusing education on knowledge and skills assurance and increasing the provision of programs relevant to the workforce;
- Improving benefits and supports for employers and employees, including stronger federal investments in child care, paid family and medical leave, retirement security, and other tax incentives.
While arguing for the necessary level of cooperation between local, state and federal governments, in addition to higher education and industry, may seem like a tall order in an era of political divisiveness, the commission says we should try.
“Skeptics will say that this Commission’s vision for radical change is impossible, that the political storms are too strong and America’s divisions too wide. We say it is possible,” the report read. “Achieving our vision will take time, but the first step is to identify the challenges and a set of solutions and then work towards the broad leadership and trust and building that will be needed to make it happen.”
