and the problem is mentioned in the sentence: "The erosion in manufacturing capability weakened the U.S. economy over the past two decades".
They fail to address why that manufacturing capability was weakened.
The "solution" mentioned in the article, for creating manufacturing universities, fails to get at the root of the problem. That solution would have absolutely no effect on manufacturing returning to the U.S.
The U.S. lost millions of manufacturing jobs when it became uncompetitive against foreign labor and foreign manufacturing facilities. The U.S. lost those jobs when the U.S. became too expensive a place in which to do any manufacturing. The cost of doing business in the U.S. is the major reason for the losses in manufacturing. The costs became greater when taxes were raised on businesses. When foreign facilities don't have the high tax rates, that is equal to huge savings to the manufacturers, and thus, it's a no-brainer as to why they would send operations overseas. The cost of doing business also goes up, tremendously, when the number of regulations that businesses have to comply with, have added to the cost of manufacturing. Foreign facilities don't have to contend with the massive number of regulations which are intrusive and obstructive and expensive. Then there is the cost of labor, which, for sure, is a lot lower overseas, where people are willing to do equivalent work for a lot less, and benefits payments are virtually non-existent or very low in comparison to those of the U.S. Sure, there is a cost of shipping that adds to the cost of the products when they're shipped back to the states, but the advantages are still very hard to overcome for those foreign workers and facilities.
Congress will never solve any problems if they continue to be in denial about the real problems which caused so much of our manufacturing base to move overseas or out of the country.
The programs that might send money to the universities, will just result in a massive amount of money being transferred from the tax payers pockets, to those universities. It will have become just another "wealth redistribution" scheme, with barely any benefit to the country.
With the tech-driven manufacturing resurgence, it may be time for the government to push for university programs dedicated to preparing people to lead this new economic growth engine. 
That’s the view of Robert Atkinson and Stephen Ezell, who call for the establishment of at least 20 institutions of higher education as “U.S. Manufacturing Universities.” In a report published by Brookings Institution, they urge the U.S. Congress to enact a series of specially designated universities in the same way the legislature established land-grant colleges in 1862 to promote learning in “agriculture and the mechanic arts.” These colleges “played a key role in enabling the United States to later take the lead in the mechanization of agriculture and the industrialization of the economy,” Atkinson and Ezell state.
The need for such institutions is urgent in an increasingly competitive global economy in which the U.S. is falling behind in the number of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) graduates. As Atkinson and Ezell describe the challenge:
“America competes against a wide array of nations seeking to win the race for global innovation advantage, especially in advanced manufacturing. A new cadre of federally-designated ‘Manufacturing Universities’ that revamp their engineering programs with particular emphasis on work that is relevant to manufacturing firms while providing engineering students with real-world work experience should be part of the solution.”
The report observes “university-based engineering programs can play a critical role in supporting advanced research, particularly in areas of relevance for manufacturers, and can help train the highly skilled workforce that advanced manufacturers need.”
The erosion in manufacturing capability weakened the U.S. economy over the past two decades, Atkinson and Ezell add. “Every lost manufacturing job meant the loss of an additional two to three jobs throughout the rest of the economy,” they calculate.
Funding for Manufacturing Universities would consist of an annual $25-million grant from the National Science Foundation. Designated universities would be required to refocus engineering programs around manufacturing engineering; increase joint industry-university research projects; add more training of students that incorporates manufacturing experiences through cooperative education or other programs; and provide a Ph.D. program focused on turning out more engineering Ph.D.s who would work in industry.
(Photo: Ford assembly line, via Wikipedia.)
