Continuing to think about skills, another organization, Skills 2 Compete, is calling for skills development past high school. This group is specifically focusing on what it calls the “Middle Skills.” Middle-skill jobs require training beyond high school, but not a four-year degree, including an associate’s degree, occupational certification, or an apprenticeship. For a better understanding of Middle Skills, here is a brief video created by Skills 2 Compete called Finding the Forgotten Middle:
Skills 2 Compete is a consortium of business, industry, and education. Their rationale and objective:
In the 1920s, the U.S. promised every American a high school education, in part to meet the needs of an industrializing economy. In the 1950s and 60s, the U.S. gave millions of adults and young people access to vocational training or a college education through the GI Bill as a way to fuel the post-war economy. In both cases, visionary leaders developed bold, new education and training policies to address new economic realities. To meet the unprecedented skill demands of our rapidly changing economy…
Every U.S. worker should have access to the equivalent of at least two years of education or training past high school—leading to a vocational credential, industry certification, or one’s first two years of college—to be pursued at whatever point and pace makes sense for individual workers and industries. Every person must also have access to the basic skills needed to pursue such education.
Their work is supported by a November 2007 report, America’s Forgotten Middle-Skill Jobs, in which economists Harry Holzer (Georgetown University and The 
Urban Institute) and Robert Lerman (American University and The Urban Institute) argue that middle-skill jobs – those that require more than high school but less than a four-year degree – continue to make up nearly half of all jobs today and will continue to face shortages of skilled workers.
