America needs to rebuild its trade force ... we don't need any more arrogant lawyers and legacy politicians and business moguls.

We need more in these trades:

Tool & die maker
Machinist
Welder
Construction
Robotics
Propulsion
Laboratory
Chemicals
Transportation
Medicine
Research
Agriculture
Food industry
Energy

A top-notch experienced tool & die maker can earn as much as the average 10-year-out earnings of Ivy grads. The University of Pennsylvania tops the list with graduates earning $112,761. Princeton University is second with $110,433, followed by Cornell University at $98,321. Columbia University and Yale University follow, with median salaries of $97,540 and $95,961 respectively. Dartmouth College and Harvard University have median earnings of $95,540 and $95,114, and Brown University rounds out the list with $87,811. MIT leads the national list at $196,900, and it is not an Ivy.

The Ivies enroll too many foreign students, meaning that thousands of deserving Americans are denied those opportunities. The percentage of international students in Ivy League schools varies, but generally ranges from 10% to 20%. For example, Harvard University has about 18% international students in the Class of 2028. Columbia University's Class of 2028 has 17% international students. Other Ivy League schools, like Yale, Princeton, and Brown, also have significant international student populations, with percentages around 14%, 15%, and 18% respectively. The University of Pennsylvania has approximately 13%.

Ivy Rankings are beginning to slip, being competitively rivaled by universities like Duke, Rice, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Cal Tech, Johns Hopkins, Chicago, UCLA, Berkeley and Notre Dame. In another 10 years, the playing field will have changed dramatically.

There are some other fine universities out there, the graduates of which do quite well: Auburn (Tim Cook), Michigan (Larry Page, Tom Brady), Ohio State (George Steinbrenner, Jack Nicklaus), Florida (Marco Rubio), GA Tech (Jimmy Carter, David C. Garrett Jr, fmr CEO Delta Airlines), UVA (Woodrow Wilson, RFK, Edgar Allen Poe), PA State (Rick Santorum, Donald P Bellisario - JAG, NCIS, Magnum PI), Lehigh (Lee Iacocca), Texas (Walter Cronkite, the last true journalist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Greg Abbott), Washington (Ken Jennings, Bill Gates), USC (Neil Armstrong, George Lucas, Ron Howard, John Wayne).

Harris Corporation, a high-tech organization and one of the largest employers in Florida was successfully run for years by 2 Auburn graduates. One of the highest winners on Jeopardy was an Ohio State undergrad ... used the money to go on to Yale grad school.

National academic rankings of Ivies:
Forbes / USNWR / WSJ-College Pulse

Brown 18 / 13 (tie) / 36
Columbia 6 / 13 (tie) / 14
Cornell 10 / 11 (tie) / 27
Dartmouth 16 / 15 (tie) / 57
Harvard 8 / 3 / 7
Penn 7 / 10 / 13
Princeton 1 / 1 / 1
Yale 4 / 5 / 4

USNWR 2025 Rankings:

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities?_sort=rank&_sortDirection=asc

I am not anti-Ivy. My brother and step-brother both went to Yale, and my step-brother went on to Harvard. I am a former university professor and I am all for education which teaches how to think, not what to think and how to act. I just don't like what I hear is happening on those campuses (notice I said "what I hear" ... I try to find reality in a sea of puffing, misinformation and denial by considering all the news that's fit to print, and all the rest that isn't which constitute the majority of outlets). Some of the Ivies are shooting themselves in the foot. Public opinion can cause dynamic shifts overnight, and the general public is not really fond of riots, unruly demonstrations, antisemitism and elitism.

Time to re-focus.