<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=4UXGE8_1Gz93o7d00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=4UXGE8_1Gz93o7d00" width="777" height="437" ><figcaption>iStock</figcaption></figure>In many of the most promising new apprenticeship programs, community colleges aren’t bystanders. They drive these programs’ growth. That’s the lesson from a recent U.S. Department of Labor evaluation of apprenticeships across healthcare, IT and advanced manufacturing.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=21SFD2_1Gz93o7d00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=21SFD2_1Gz93o7d00" width="1536" height="463" ></figure>Apprenticeship has long been used, in the evaluation’s words, “as a training model for construction-related occupations.” Beginning in 2015, the department awarded grants to expand apprenticeships into these newer fields. Two-year and four-year colleges led much of that work. The bet paid off.The evaluation examined two of those grant programs, which together awarded nearly $284 million in 2019 and 2020. Only colleges and universities could apply to the larger program. About half of those grantees were community or technical colleges.Colleges delivered classroom instruction for 71% of the programs researchers visited and for 89% of those in advanced manufacturing. The earlier American Apprenticeship Initiative, the federal government’s first big push into new fields, also relied mostly on community colleges.The results were strong. Nine quarters after enrolling, registered apprentices were about 9 percentage points more likely to be employed than similar community college students in related fields who were not in apprenticeships. They also earned $4,693 more that quarter. In healthcare, the earnings gain was $7,980. For apprentices under age 25, it was $6,029. Unlike many earlier studies, this one counted everyone who enrolled, not just those who finished.These numbers come with caveats. Employers handpick their apprentices and may choose candidates whose strengths the data don’t capture. That could make apprentices look better than the community college students they were compared with. Some students in the comparison group were likely still in school and earning less. Compared with job seekers rather than students, apprentices’ gains were smaller but still real. Even so, when a college teaches the same content through an earn-and-learn model, its students tend to come out ahead.<h2>Reaching youth</h2>A recent Urban Institute report points in the same direction. Using federal registration data, it sorted the nation’s youth apprenticeship programs into four models. Programs aligned with colleges grew from 1,470 to 2,453 over the past decade. Nearly all apprentices in these programs receive classroom instruction from a college. They earn more than apprentices in high school programs, about $16.70 an hour to start and $23.93 at completion.About one in 10 of their young apprentices live in rural areas, a larger share than in adult programs. The authors point to community colleges’ role as anchor institutions in many rural communities. They conclude that policymakers seeking to expand youth apprenticeships should build on the college network, since college programs “offer an institutional structure to drive further expansion.”North Carolina offers a preview of what this could look like. A March 2026 state analysis tracked nearly 30,000 people who entered registered apprenticeships between 2001 and 2020. About one in 10 also earned an associate degree from the North Carolina Community College System. These degree apprentices started much younger, with at least 40% aged 16 to 20, compared with about 5% of other apprentices. They also started at lower wages, but they didn’t stay there.In manufacturing, their average annual wages more than doubled in the first year after completion. Within about six years, they’d caught up with mid-career apprentices without a degree. In public safety jobs, they pulled ahead, earning about $91,000 a year by year ten, compared with about $75,000. The state also allows community colleges to award up to 16 semester credit hours for on-the-job learning in applied associate degree programs linked to a registered apprenticeship.<h2>Three gaps to fill</h2>Yet community colleges remain a small part of the apprenticeship system. In 2016, only 30 community colleges sponsored registered apprenticeship programs. By 2023, more than 200 were training over 15,500 apprentices. That’s real progress. It’s also about 3% of all registered apprentices. Across the country, colleges reach many more apprentices by teaching their classroom courses than by running programs themselves. Among young apprentices in programs designed for adults, about one in six take their classes at a college. But colleges rarely design or lead those programs. For most community colleges, apprenticeship remains a side program rather than a core way to deliver what they teach. Moving apprenticeship from boutique to baseline will require community colleges to close three gaps.The first gap is about who gets in. Young women make up about half of high school apprentices, but only 15.6% of young apprentices in college-aligned programs. Some of the balance in high school programs reflects fields such as early childhood education, which already employ mostly women. Still, the Urban Institute report concludes that the practices that bring young women into high school apprenticeships “do not carry over into postsecondary education.” Community colleges already recruit women into nursing and allied health every year, so they know how to change this.The second gap concerns what apprentices train for. In college-aligned programs, the leading fields are installation, maintenance and repair, construction and production. Healthcare support accounts for less than 5% of young apprentices, and education for less than 3%.By contrast, many high school apprenticeships train for teaching, healthcare and computing, fields where advancement typically requires further education. Yet the Urban Institute report finds that health care is the only one of these fields that is also among the most common in college programs. Too many high school apprentices reach the first rung of the career ladder only to find no second rung waiting.The third gap is age. College-aligned programs reach few 16- to 18-year-olds. Yet colleges already have a foothold with this age group. Almost half of high school apprentices receive their classroom instruction from a college, either through dual enrollment or courses that continue after graduation. The bridge from high school is partly built. Now community colleges need to complete it.<h2>Five steps to kick-start a program</h2>What would it look like for community colleges to own apprenticeship? Here are five places to start. 1. Convert programs that already work. Start with credit and noncredit programs that lead directly to jobs, such as healthcare support, IT and manufacturing. Build earn-and-learn versions of these programs in partnership with employers.2. Build the second rung. Create college apprenticeships in education, healthcare and IT that build on high school apprenticeship programs. Award students credit for what they’ve already learned in high school, using dual enrollment as the on-ramp.3. Recruit with intention. Apply the outreach that already works in allied health to bring more women into college apprenticeships, including in fields where they are scarce. Start with young women already in high school apprenticeships, many of whom take college classes, and show them where a college apprenticeship can take them.4. Measure placement, not just completion. A new Opportunity Insights study of Year Up found that sites placing 80% or more of graduates in the fields they trained for saw earnings gains of about $10,000 a year. Sites placing fewer than 31% saw gains of about $3,000. The authors caution that this is correlation, not proof of causation. But colleges can track placement in real time, long before earnings data arrive.5. Learn alongside peers. The American Institutes for Research (AIR) and Ascendium are working with a cohort of eight community colleges through the Upward Apprenticeship Initiative to advance recruitment, completion, and data use. AIR and the Census Bureau have also launched an Apprenticeship Outcomes Lab to track apprentices’ earnings for years after they leave a program. Colleges should closely follow both efforts and add their own results to the evidence.The evidence shows that a young person doesn’t have to choose between an apprenticeship and college. An apprenticeship is college delivered differently, with an employer as a co-teacher and a paycheck from day one.Community colleges helped build the newest apprenticeships that work. The question now is whether they will make apprenticeship part of who they are, so that a student who steps onto the first rung in high school finds a community college ready to help with the next one.</div></body>

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In many of the most promising new apprenticeship programs, community colleges aren’t bystanders. They drive these programs’ growth. That’s the lesson from a recent U.S. Department of Labor evaluation of apprenticeships across healthcare, IT and advanced manufacturing. Apprenticeship has long been used, in the evaluation’s words, “as...

Apprenticeship’s future runs through community colleges

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In many of the most promising new apprenticeship programs, community colleges aren’t bystanders. They drive these programs’ growth. That’s the lesson from 

Apprenticeship’s future runs through community colleges

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