AMNA NAWAZ: In the next decade, millions of manufacturers in the next decade, millions of manufacturing jobs will open up in the U.S. as workers retire.

Meanwhile, the sector is also supposed to add more jobs with help from federal subsidies.

But, by some current estimates, only half of those jobs will be filled.

So where will the workers needed come from?

Well, how about some two-year colleges like Cincinnati State?

Our economics correspondent, Paul Solman, paid a visit in search of hope for the future.

ZANE DECKER, Cincinnati State Technical and Community College: It had to have three wheels.

It had to be a gas motor, and it has to have a wheelie bar, because these things do wheelies.

PAUL SOLMAN: We used to say when I was a kid, cool as a moose.

Not exactly your grandparents' shop class here at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College.

ZANE DECKER: The students have two semesters to design and build this.

Semester one, they design everything you're sitting on.

PAUL SOLMAN: Zane Decker now runs part of the program he himself recently graduated from, teaching skills much in demand these days.

ZANE DECKER: And let's go ahead and look at the simulation and see how it looks.

PAUL SOLMAN: Schools like Cincinnati State are key training grounds to prepare students for manufacturing jobs for which there just aren't enough workers these days, like at GE Aviation, a partner to this program.

The job gap is especially important here in Ohio.

America's third most manufacturing-heavy state.

ZANE DECKER: Demand is just skyrocketing for this.

And if you went back 20 years ago, there wasn't as much demand as there is today.

ANDREW LAKES, College Student: That tool right there is called an eighth-inch ball mill.

PAUL SOLMAN: Demand for the likes of 20-year-old Andrew Lakes.

ANDREW LAKES: And it turns that software into G-code.

And this is what G-code is right now.

And it's reading all those lines of code.

And that line of code tells us what that tool is going to do.

PAUL SOLMAN: Which is?

ANDREW LAKES: I'm building a pocket knife handle.

PAUL SOLMAN: A pocket knife handle?

ANDREW LAKES: Yes, as you can see right here, I have a few prototypes, right now working on my finishing product.

PAUL SOLMAN: So this is -- you -- your finger goes there?

Is that... ANDREW LAKES: Yes.

PAUL SOLMAN: His first foray, a flop.

ANDREW LAKES: Here, you can say I went a little too deep.

PAUL SOLMAN: Right over there, huh?

ANDREW LAKES: Ended up breaking a tool.

PAUL SOLMAN: You broke a tool?

ANDREW LAKES: Yes, I broke the tool.

PAUL SOLMAN: Is that humiliating or... ANDREW LAKES: Yes, a little bit, but you learn from your mistakes and you learn to move on and what to do better next time.

PAUL SOLMAN: Rather more challenging, a working race buggy.

This is last year's model.

AMY GUTMANN FUENTES, College Student: Next year's car, which is what I'm working on and is what I'm designing, is going to be so small that it's going to be able to fit inside of this car.

PAUL SOLMAN: Amy Gutmann Fuentes, also a student here.

And you're going to build the whole thing?

AMY GUTMANN FUENTES: Yes.

PAUL SOLMAN: And then what do you do with it?

AMY GUTMANN FUENTES: Then we will race it.

PAUL SOLMAN: In the spring at college Baja competitions like this one.

And how do you expect to do with one of these things in the spring?

AMY GUTMANN FUENTES: I think we're going to crush it because we're one of two or three community colleges that compete alongside these major universities with huge budgets, and we have done pretty well.

So I think this new car is going to be, like, the best.

PAUL SOLMAN: Baja racers and knife handles are just a few lures for students to attend this program and acquire skills for America's supposed manufacturing renaissance.

DONALD TRUMP, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. President-Elect: We're going to launch a historic buildup of American manufacturing muscle and might.

PAUL SOLMAN: But there's a big problem.

What we hear, what we read is that there's a real shortage of people going into manufacturing, while lots of people are retiring from manufacturing.

ZANE DECKER: Yes.

PAUL SOLMAN: Not the case?

ZANE DECKER: It's absolutely the case.

We have all these people retiring that have the skills.

We have got this younger generation that there's a big skills gap, where we need to get this younger generation to replace these people who are retiring.

PAUL SOLMAN: Where better to get the skill than at America's community colleges, where nearly nine million students pay a tiny fraction the cost of a four-year degree?

And how much does it cost to be here?

ANDREW LAKES: For me, it costs about three grand a semester.

PAUL SOLMAN: For a job that pays?

ANDREW LAKES: After I graduate, I'm expected to make about $26 to $27 on the hour.

PAUL SOLMAN: So $26, $27 an hour, $50,000, $60,000 a year, right?

ANDREW LAKES: Roughly, yes.

PAUL SOLMAN: And for around here, that's good money?

ANDREW LAKES: Yes, especially for someone my age.

PAUL SOLMAN: Especially for starting pay in Ohio.

MONICA POSEY, President, Cincinnati State Technical and Community College: We really emphasize preparing students for the work force of the future, because our job is to meet the needs of the local economy.

PAUL SOLMAN: Monica Posey, president of Cincinnati State.

MONICA POSEY: Eighty-five to 90 percent of our students stay in this area and work.

And we have great partnership with employers and they tell us what they need, what we should be investing in, what we should do.

PAUL SOLMAN: But -- and here's the crux of this story -- Zane Decker's classes are undersubscribed, cutting-edge skills, good jobs, lack of workers nationwide, and yet not enough young people in the pipeline.

How many of you think that people like yourselves aren't here because manufacturing is uncool?

Uncool?

No?

Because it's too hard?

Really, almost everybody.

Because they just don't know about it?

That too.

I put the same questions to the teacher, Zane Decker.

ZANE DECKER: We have got to work on changing and really having people realize that, if you look around the shop, it's not all that dirty.

People are out there challenging themselves.

They're spending half the time on the computer, half the time on the shop floor.

I think if we can show young people that this is a viable career and the training is available for it, we can fill that gap.

PAUL SOLMAN: But we're not.

We're nowhere near there yet, right?

ZANE DECKER: Yes, we're not there yet.

I think a lot of it is just the stigma around this field and getting people to realize that it's a much nicer job than it used to be 50 years ago.

PAUL SOLMAN: And, as President Monica Posey says, Cincinnati State gets federal and state funding to do so.

MONICA POSEY: We're recruiting and we're doing everything we can to invest in it, but we also know that we need to recast manufacturing in terms of student and families, their attitude about the industry.

PAUL SOLMAN: But still not an easy sell, even with incentives like this one, which literally anybody can drive, and, if you spend four semesters here while prepping to propel America's proposed manufacturing future, you can even build.

For the "PBS News Hour," Paul Solman, risking my neck to amuse you in Cincinnati, Ohio.