Donald Trump had the right idea about education during his first administration: Judge potential employees by their skills and experience, not their degrees. Open up a world of bright futures to people who don’t have a bachelor’s degree but crave training and work hard.

In fact, aside from starting up Operation Warp Speed, Trump’s most worthwhile official act was probably signing the rule that federal jobs should not require a bachelor’s degree unless it’s really needed.

Trump and other Republicans saw that the education vision former President Barack Obama had pushed – consisting of a vague Common Core public school curriculum followed by “college for all” – had alienated working-class Americans. Well-paid manufacturing jobs had all but disappeared, and people were looking for a new middle-class future.

The growth of tech indicated to Obama’s education advisors that success would depend on university education, preferably in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, fields. But that wasn’t a message that many working-class people wanted to hear. It struck them as an elitist judgment that they’re nothing without a four-year degree.

Obama was right to some extent: The greatest growth in well-paid jobs will be among those that require a college degree. But Trump was right too: 45% of those holding a bachelor’s are underemployed even a decade after they graduate, working in jobs that don’t require a degree, and 28% of people with a two-year associate’s degree earn more than the average four-year-college graduate. More than a third of college students, meanwhile, don’t complete a degree within six years, and almost none of those students ever finish their education.

The problem is that high schools have become so college-focused that students who don’t plan on higher education usually get little to no guidance on what careers they might consider, according to a recent Gallup poll. There is a wide variety of possibilities.

So although Trump’s opening of federal jobs to more people without degrees was a start, schools can do far more to prepare young people to be both citizens and members of the workforce.

Shutting the U.S. Education Department, as the president-elect has threatened to do, would require congressional approval, and eliminating a Cabinet-level agency would be tough to get past even some Republican lawmakers. Its responsibilities could be returned to the Interior Department – where they originated before the Education Department was created, in 1979 – but what would be the point? No matter where the necessary personnel are placed, the work would need to be done.

Even as Trump vows to get the federal government out of the schools, he wants to meddle more by pulling funding from any schools that teach about LGBTQ+ issues or “critical race theory.” While these subjects make for provocative talking points, they’re not a major part of learning in most districts.

Another pillar of Trump’s platform, school choice, appears to be facing public resistance. All three statewide votes on the subject this fall went against choice, two of them in conservative states. Parents rely on and support their local schools more than elected Republicans might understand.

Trump tends to favor disruption over constructive policymaking, but he has already made non-college pathways a signature education statement. Now is the perfect time to take advantage of that. His administration could use corporate tax credits and public-private partnerships to help create apprenticeships, landing young people in white-collar jobs with a future, as Switzerland has done for years.

The president-elect’s pick for education secretary, former pro wrestling executive Linda McMahon, has so far remained quiet about her priorities, though vouchers are likely to be among them. But just before her appointment was announced, she praised Switzerland’s system of white-collar apprenticeships for high school students, which led to executive and professional jobs. I’ve long thought the United States should emulate the model; a small but very successful program in Denver does so.

Trump has a chance to build on what he has already said he believes and become a true education president.