As of 2023, 541 community or technical colleges were registered apprenticeship “sponsors,” meaning they officially administered and operated apprenticeship programs. However, only 208 of these colleges had an active apprentice.
Therein lies the rub in a pitch by the Apprenticeships for America (AFA), an advocacy organization working to expand apprenticeships, to rally more community colleges to serve as intermediaries to grow apprenticeships nationally.
“With more Americans questioning the worth of a traditional four-year degree, community colleges are proving their immense value — not only as hubs for short-term training and skills, but as powerful drivers of long-term career and economic mobility, especially for underrepresented students,” said John Colburn, executive director of AFA, which today released a report that makes a case for tapping community colleges to scale apprenticeships.
Community colleges’ geographic locations, experience with workforce development and connections with local and regional business and industry make them ideal intermediaries to expand apprenticeships nationally, the report says. However, it also notes the challenges, particularly with funding and getting companies to participate.
Promising practices and challenges
The AFA report examined 18 community colleges across the U.S. that serve as intermediaries in successful registered apprenticeship programs. As such, the colleges are responsible for managing the programs, from handling paperwork and coordinating funding, to employer and apprenticeship recruitment and collecting data. The report provides examples of the various strategies the colleges used to grow the programs, such as bolstering student recruitment, providing student participants with supports like tutors and transportation, and even hiring consultants with sales and business backgrounds to pitch apprenticeships to businesses.
However, quality apprenticeship programs are expensive, and finding sustainable funding was a common theme among most of the colleges, which often have to “braid” financial sources such as federal and state grants, foundation funds, employer contributions and funds from local organizations like chambers of commerce, the report says.
“Most do not have a reliable and ongoing funding stream for existing and expanding apprenticeship-related activities,” it says.
AFA’s recommendation to grow funding sources include:
- Lobbying states to count full-time equivalent funding for purposes of reimbursement.
- Modifying eligibility for Pell grants and GI Bill tuition assistance to cover apprenticeships.
- Creating a federal “pay per apprentice” fund through which organizations that work with employers to create or expand apprenticeships would receive funding based on the number of apprenticeship recruits and program completers.
Discussing the challenges
Funding and getting employers aboard was the topic of conversation at a roundtable on Tuesday to discuss the report’s findings. Invited stakeholders generally agreed community colleges could play a critical role in scaling apprenticeships. Further growth of their apprenticeship efforts would assure quality and create more education and career pathway options for students, said Jane Oates, a senior policy advisor and recent president at WorkingNation.
But the challenges are significant.
“How do you sell an employer on apprenticeships? How do you get them to want to do it?” asked Robert Lerman, who heads the Urban Institute’s apprenticeship group and serves on AFA’s board. He argued that as more organizations and companies tap apprenticeships, enrollments and completions would increase, participating companies would have a pipeline of skilled workers, and interest among other companies would increase.
“The first step is to get to the tipping point,” Lerman said.
Seth Harris, a professor at Northeastern University and former White House official who served as acting labor secretary during the Obama administration, agreed about the challenges with businesses.
“It’s an expensive training model,” he said, noting the costs of trainers, equipment, wages and benefits, and more. “That’s a mortgage for an employer,” especially small and medium-sized businesses, he added.
Although federal investment in apprenticeships has grown over the past decade, Harris said the funding has gone to creating programs rather than operating them.
“Without that, I don’t think the economics are going to work in the long term,” he said.
Knowing their communities
There is also the question of whether many community colleges, which are typically underfunded and already provide a wide array of programs and services, are even interested in creating or growing apprenticeships. The colleges and communities they serve have their own nuances, leaders from the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) — including President and CEO Walter Bumphus — noted at the roundtable.
Jen Worth, who heads workforce development at AACC, observed that not every type of profession is “apprenticeshipable,” citing low-wage childcare jobs as an example. She also noted that in some sectors and geographic areas, union apprenticeships already have strong footholds. In addition, federal requirements for registered apprenticeships can, in some cases, hamper growth, particularly in the quick-paced technology sector.
Later this fall AFA plans to release a research paper on states’ roles in apprenticeships.
