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For decades, America has told a singular story about success, suggesting that the only acceptable path to success is a four-year degree. Any other trajectory was treated as a detour. Fortunately, that story is changing with new, acceptable ways to achieve success. At both the federal and state levels, the U.S. is gradually reinventing its education system to value skills, not just diplomas. From new federal initiatives like Workforce Pell to state-led Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), policy is beginning to catch up to what the economy has been signaling for years. As a country, we need electricians, plumbers, welders, and builders as much as we need white-collar workers. A handful of states now have ESA programs. The main purpose of ESAs is to give parents flexibility with school choice. While ESAs are most widely used for private school tuition, some schools and school networks are now exploring using trades programs, including technical courses, apprenticeships, or industry certifications, as a differentiator to attract parents. There have also been changes to 529 college savings plans, and those funds can be used for short-term credentials and trade-related certificates. These small shifts mark a turning point and are building momentum towards career paths for many, rather than college for all. HANDS-ON EDUCATION For students, the shift can be life-changing. A report from the Southern Regional Education Board found that high school students who take three or more career technical education (CTE) credits had a reduced risk of dropping out. Students who dont always thrive in traditional classroom settings are starting to see that the education system not only values them, but is welcoming them. Ive seen the power of hands-on education at one of our customers, Oklahoma-based Pryor High School Innovation Center, which is utilizing interactive training to drive its HVAC pre-apprenticeship program. The program takes students from zero industry skills to job-ready through a curated pathway of online and in-person trades training. Learning should be more like a set of Lego blocks, and students can build their own pathway by stacking short-term credentials, apprenticeships, and hands-on training programs to suit their strengths. The ability to have a modular, customizable model of learning is emerging in real-time as states like Florida, Arizona, and Texas expand ESAs and workforce grants to fund job-specific education. The flexibility also means faster, stronger pipelines from high school to high-wage work. GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES CAN HELP Career pathways go beyond education and directly translate into national competitiveness. The Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS and Science Act created significant momentum for the U.S. manufacturing industry, but we need a skilled workforce to make that happen. The new Workforce Pell initiative can help. The rules now expand eligibility to short-term programs, typically just eight to 15 weeks, and directly lead to jobs. The impact could be transformative. The Workforce Pell expansion is expected to bring roughly 100,000 new students into short-term credentialing programs that were previously ineligible for aid. According to the Congressional Budget Office, about $300 million in new Pell funding will flow through the program, with average awards projected at $2,200 per student. The program is slated to take effect in July 2026. Last year, the U.S. Department of Labor announced over $86 million in Industry-Driven Skills Training Fund grants awarded to 14 states, designed to boost innovation, enhance domestic manufacturing and help meet workforce demands nationwide. Of the funding, $20 million will directly support training workers in marine electrical, manufacturing, welding, plus other skilled trades. WHO BENEFITS? While these programs benefit students by providing access to affordable, focused education that leads directly to employment, they also help businesses. Businesses will have access to a stronger, qualified talent pipeline to fill their gaps and replace retiring workers. The programs also help to power a cultural shift were seeing in the perception of skilled trades. For too long, education other than a four-year degree carried a stigma. Fortunately, that mindset is changing. In a recent Harris Poll, 91% of respondents agreed that trade jobs are just as vital to society as white-collar jobs, and 90% said skilled trades offer a faster and more affordable path to a good career. Gen Z has shown an increased interest in the trades, and this year alone, TikTok has virally turned trades like blacksmithing and horseshoeing into career paths. The Skilled Careers Coalition and SkillsUSA partnered with TikTok to influence students’ interest in trade schools, apprenticeships, and high-demand CTE careers. More exposure will go a long way to encourage the next generation of workers to explore and pursue skilled trades. A MORE COMPETITIVE ECONOMY If the federal and state governments continue to align policy and funding with workforce demand, we could see a future where students are able to pursue education tailored to their ambitions and natural aptitudes. Enabling this will do wonders for the economy and deliver a happier, more respectful and proud community. If you ever need a reminder of why this matters, go talk to an electrician or an HVAC technician. You will rarely meet anyone more proud of the role they play in keeping our world running. Forming a new ecosystem that treats education as a lifelong, adaptable tool that is built around outcomes will create, by extension, a more competitive economy. Doug Donovan is CEO and founder of Interplay Learning.
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E-Commerce
If you live near an AI data center, you may already be seeing higher electricity bills. But if that data center is for Anthropic, the AI company now says it will cover the price hikes consumers face. The data center boom unfolding across the country is driving up electricity costs and adding more stress to the power grid. That added demand means the grid needs serious upgrades, or even new sources of power. In many places, those rising costs are being passed directly onto community members. But more and more legislators and even tech executives are raising the idea that the companies behind the data centers should foot the bill. Anthropic, which created the Claude AI chatbot, is the latest company to join that mindset. “We’ve been clear that the U.S. needs to build AI infrastructure at scale to stay competitive, but the costs of powering our models should fall on Anthropic, not everyday Americans,” Dario Amodei, Anthropic founder and CEO, said in a statement. “We look forward to working with communities, local governments, and the [Trump administration] to get this right.” How will this actually work? As Anthropic invests in more AI infrastructure, it says it will “will cover electricity price increases that consumers face from our data centers, per a post to its website this week. [AI] companies shouldnt leave American ratepayers to pick up the tab. Data centers can hike electricity costs because they drive up electricity demand and they can require costly infrastructure upgrades, the costs of which get passed on to ratepayers. Anthropic says it will address both of those factors, first by covering 100% of the grid upgrades needed to interconnect our data centers, paid through increases to our monthly electric charges. That could include things like new or upgraded transmission lines, substations, or generally any supporting infrastructure needed for its data centers. Anthropic also says it will develop new sources of power to add supply to the growing electricity demand; work with utilities to cover the price impacts where new power isnt being generated yet; and reduce strain on the grid during peak demand times through optimization tools. Where Anthropic leases capacity from already-existing data centers, it says it is “exploring further ways to address our own workloads’ effects on prices.” The company adds that it supports federal policies that make it cheaper and quicker to bring new energy sources online. When asked if there was a limit to what Anthropic will cover, a spokesperson told Fast Company that its commitment extends to any “grid upgrades or development of new energy sources that would otherwise be passed onto ratepayersprovided that our data center causes these costs, and that they’re necessary to serve our data centers.” AI data centers are causing a natural gas surge Many companies are building new power sources to match their growing electricity needs. That can hike ratepayers’ bills because utilities can raise rates as a way to recover the costs of building the new power plants. But beyond that initial investment, the type of power generation that gets built also mattersfor both ratepayers bills and the planet. Primarily, data centers are leading to a surge in new natural gas power plants. For example, in order to power a massive data center for Facebook parent company Meta Platforms in Louisiana, the local utility company proposed building three new natural gas power plants. Meta isnt alone. Proposals for new natural gas plants in the United States tripled in 2025 compared to the year prior, according to Global Energy Monitor. The United States now has the most gas-fired power capacity in development (that includes projects that have been announced, are in pre-construction, and in construction), that nonprofit sayswith more than a third of that capacity slated to directly power data centers. Thats bad for the environment: While not as environmentally harmful as coal, natural gas still comes with a lot of CO2 and methane emissions, which warm the planet. Its also not necessarily great for ratepayers, because natural gas is a famously volatile commodity, as the World Resources Institute puts it. It’s vulnerable to huge price swings, and its frequently linked to rising electricity prices. In October 2025, natural gas prices were up 45% compared to the year prior, according to the U.S. Energy and Information Administration, and are expected to go up another 16% within the year. Renewables like wind and solar, on the other hand, are the cheapest source of new power generation. Can promises from Big Tech be enforced? In a July 2025 post, Anthropic said that it will accelerate geothermal, natural gas, and nuclear permitting, for AI data centers. But its not exactly clear how many natural gas plants are in the works to power Anthropic data centers, or if Anthropics promise to cover electricity hikes includes the price volatility of natural gas in new plants it brings onlinenot just the costs that come with recovering power plant construction expenses. Anthropics most recent announcement says it will work to bring net-new power generation online to match our data centers electricity needs. Where new generation isnt online, well work with utilities and external experts to estimate and cover demand-driven price effects from our data centers. When asked if it is specifically planning to build more natural gas capacity, if it has plans to add renewable power, and if price hikes from using more natural gas in the power generation Anthropic adds will also be covered, a spokesperson said the company doesn’t have “anything new to share at this time.” When asked if there’s a timeline to Anthropic’s commitment, the spokesperson said there is no end date, and the commitments apply to “any data centers we build in the U.S. “We have more to do, and well continue to share updates as this work develops,” the company added. Anthropic is not the only company that has said it would foot the power bills for its data ceners: Google, Microsoft, Meta, and others have made similar promises. But as CNN pointed out, companies have shared scant details on exactly how theyll carry out those plans, and theres not much in terms of regulation to enforce them, either. Big tech companies are finally beginning to acknowledge that their data centers are saddling consumers with higher electricity costs and straining our power grid but they still refuse to take full responsibility for these problems they are creating, Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said in a statement to CNN. The statement was in response to letters that tech companies had sent to Senate Democrats regarding an investigation into how data centers are impacting electricity prices. Without action from Congress, he added, they will continue to evade accountability.
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E-Commerce
Faced with a sluggish job market, American workers got a bit of good news yesterday, with the release of the latest jobs report. Employers added 130,000 jobs in Januarymore job growth than the economy has seen in monthsand the unemployment rate dropped ever-so-slightly to 4.3%. But not all workers stand to benefit equally from this surge in job creation. A new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute this week captures how Black women have been uniquely impacted by fluctuations in the economy and repeated cuts to the workforce over the last yearincluding Trumps directive to trim headcount across the federal government. That decision drove out about 277,000 workers. In 2025, the rate of employment among Black women dipped to 55.7%, a decrease of 1.4 percentage points. This is a particularly steep decline over the course of a yearamong the sharpest one-year declines in the last 25 years, according to the EPI. As unemployment steadily climbed from 5.8% to 6.7% during 2025, Black womens overall labor force participation dropped from 60.6% to 59.7%, indicating that more Black women have either left the workforce or stopped looking for a job. This shift in employment also appears to have largely affected Black women with college degrees. I was surprised at the magnitude of the decline for college-educated Black women, says Valerie Wilson, the director of the EPIs Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy. The employment rate for Black women with at least a bachelors degree fell by over 3.5 percentage points in 2025significantly more than among Black women who are not college graduates. Wilson puts forth two potential explanations for the marked impact on Black women. One could be that this is just the leading edge of a broader slowdown, she says. A lot of people believe that Black workers broadly speakingin this case Black womenare sort of the canary in the coal mine. Black workers are often the first to feel the effects of a looming recession, since they tend to hold lower-wage jobs in higher numbers, which are more susceptible to economic headwinds. The losses among college-educated workers, however, point to another likely reason for the drop in employment. Perhaps the more insidious explanation would be that this is some clear demonstration of anti-equity or anti-DEI backlash in action, Wilson says. In the federal government, I think that’s pretty explicitthe first departments they cut were DEI departments. Women and people of color are reportedly overrepresented at many federal agencies, and nearly half of Black federal workers have at least a bachelors degree. But even beyond the public sector, the broader retreat from corporate DEI programs has likely contributed to those job losses, both because Black women were more likely to hold DEI-related roles and because those programs helped promote more diverse hiring across corporate America. Over the last two years, the Trump administrations attacks on DEIenshrined in a number of executive ordershave driven many companies to disavow DEI and walk back their diversity commitments. In the private sector, Black women did see some gains in certain sectors, namely education and healthcare. But they also suffered job losses across a number of other industries like manufacturing and professional and business services, which saw a dip in employment for women overall. The umbrella category of other services” also showed losses for Black women, which Wilson attributes to the greater share of those workers across non-profit roles and religious organizations. Perhaps the most unusual element of the current employment picture is that Black women have lost far more jobs than their male counterparts, per the EPI analysis. In fact, there has been an uptick in employment for Black men in the private sector, particularly across retail and professional and business services. You don’t usually see a huge gap like that, Wilson says. Even todays jobs reportwhich shows a clear improvement in Black unemploymentdoes not necessarily signal a major turnaround for this group of workers, who seem to be at a particular disadvantage in the current labor market. I can’t say this is a racial story [about] Black workers, broadly speaking, Wilson says. I can’t say it’s a women’s story, where it’s hitting all women the same. It is very specific to Black women.
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E-Commerce
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