In fact, the waiting lists swelled by more than 150% in the last five years. Why? Because the state’s technical education schools are built, staffed, and funded to serve too few students.
Meanwhile employers are clamoring for employees; more than 240,000 jobs were unfilled at the of 2025. The workforce squeeze is especially pronounced in high-demand sectors like construction, health care/social services, manufacturing, transportation, and logistics. These are the very areas with the largest student waiting lists across the state.
To be sure, state funding for career and technical education (CTE) programs rose nearly 52% in the last five years but that spending increase is obviously too little to meet the demand.
Last week state lawmakers got a detailed look behind the curtain at what the shortage of resources really means for these programs. The PA Legislature’s research arm, the Pennsylvania Legislative Budget and Finance Committee, found that tech training schools are busting at the seams with 97% of schools indicating they need more space so more students can attend. They also found that Pennsylvania’s CTE teacher corps shrunk by 20% in the last five years. Fewer teachers mean less student access.
The CTE teacher shortage is a result of the hoops teachers must jump through to be certified to teach in PA, proven by the fact that 80% of CTE programs with teacher shortages cite the state’s burdensome certification system as a problem.
High school tech teachers in PA may have to pay as much as $39,000 out-of-pocket for college courses that have nothing to do with the technical instruction they provide but are required for their PA teaching license. When the Committee compared the requirements to be a CTE teacher in PA with six other states, none of the comparison states imposed the expensive lengthy certification requirements as PA. Children First compared the PA requirements with every state and also found the Commonwealth to have expensive and burdensome requirements that restrict technical training access for high school students across the state.
With funds in such short supply these days, state policymakers need to invest taxpayer dollars wisely. CTE has a solid return on investment because it’s proven that students who take CTE classes have higher graduation rates, higher college enrollment rates, and higher lifetime earnings.
Students are already thinking ahead, lining up for CTE programs because they want a better life. Lawmakers, responsible for a better economy, need to catch up.
