Building Pathways for California’s Opportunity Youth: Unpacking the COYA Grant and Its Potential Impact on Youth Apprenticeship Programs

On July 17, 2024, the California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) and the Department of Apprenticeship Standards (DAS) announced a $31 million investment to build the California Opportunity Youth Apprenticeship (COYA) Grant. The grant initiative supports 51 apprenticeship programs across California, targeting a diverse range of industries, including healthcare, education, advanced manufacturing, IT, public sector, transportation, and others.

The COYA Grant is part of a broader effort to address workforce shortages and barriers to employment. California currently has about 100,000 apprentices working throughout the state, and in 2018, Governor Newsom committed to reaching 500,000 active apprentices statewide. To achieve this goal, California must create a more diverse apprenticeship workforce through substantial investments, such as the COYA Grant. One strategy the governor focuses on in his action plan is to build access to youth apprenticeship, specifically for out-of-school youth. In 2023, Governor Newsom signed a Career Education Executive Order, which committed to developing a statewide master plan for career education. Newsom’s Executive Order signals a long-term commitment to the state’s vision for workforce development, including $200 million towards youth apprenticeship and apprenticeship. The Executive Order calls on the aim to build on the state’s investments in youth apprenticeships to establish pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship opportunities for high school through adults seeking careers.

DAS’s broad eligibility requirements for grant recipients provided for a more expansive set of apprenticeship fields at the practitioner level. DAS prioritized place-based apprenticeship programs over intermediaries or network-based organizations to plant seed money for planning and implementation to build capacity. A place-based apprenticeship program serves its direct community to build employer partnerships and provide apprentices with access to infrastructure and resources as a workforce pathway for local apprentices. These place-based organizations may have the right connections to these communities to plug in where young people outside of the school system can get into work-based learning with the right attention to wrap around support. Some of these organizations will be starting youth apprenticeship programs for the first time with the funding from these grants; others will be using this grant to build capacity and scale in already existing programs.

DAS made four types of investments through COYA: pre-apprenticeship planning grants, pre-apprenticeship implementation grants, apprenticeship planning grants, and apprenticeship implementation grants. Nearly half of the grantees were apprenticeship planning grantees. Implementation grants were larger in dollar amount. Allowable uses of funds vary across all grants, but a few examples include supportive services, training, recruitment, and educational stipends.

Total Funding Allocation: $31,180,910 to 51 grantees

Pre-Apprenticeship Planning Grant: $2,682,915 to 11 grantees

Apprenticeship Planning Grant: $8,427,007 to 21 grantees

Pre-Apprenticeship Implementation Grant: $10,975,070 to 10 grantees

Apprenticeship Implementation Grant: $9,095,918 to 9 grantees

In an effort to increase access to career pathways for youth, the COYA Grant targets youth who have been disconnected from traditional education, also known as opportunity youth, leveraging pre-apprenticeship and youth apprenticeship opportunities and providing them with substantial wraparound services. The grants emphasize building supportive services for apprenticeships. These services include, but are not limited to, mental health services, academic and professional guidance, social support, and financial relief. Additionally, the grant should cover program-related expenses and offer students the financial relief needed to participate. Addressing these barriers head on should improve the rates at which target populations attain post-secondary credentials and enter sustainable careers. Support services help address barriers that prevent youth from completing programs, such as costs of child care, transportation, and required materials for on-the-job training and related instruction.

While these grants will likely impact planning and implementing youth apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs positively, one downfall is that the grant cycle is only 2-2.5 years. This may not be enough time to build substantial programmatic infrastructure, including administrative protocol, wraparound support networks, and other critical elements of a successful youth apprenticeship. Providing such substantial money without the proper technical assistance may leave dollars unused and programs unbuilt. The 2-year and 2.5-year grant periods for planning and implementation are shorter than most youth apprenticeship programs. To support the initial development of a program from planning to early-stage implementation and to fund the full-scale launch and scaling of youth apprenticeship in such limited periods is ambitious.

COYA was passed in the 2023-24 California legislature cycle (SB191). This investment is monumental, but it is unchartered territory, and with that comes uncertainty in the effectiveness of the pilot strategies: broad eligibility standards, short funding cycles, and so on. California has the opportunity to ask and answer many critical questions about the future of state investments in youth apprenticeship.

Lingering Questions

• Longevity and Sustainability
  • Can the programs funded by the COYA grants sustain themselves beyond the grant period? How can grantees ensure the long-term impact of their programs?
• Effectiveness of Broad Eligibility
  • Will the broad eligibility criteria foster inclusivity, or does it dilute the expertise necessary to establish a sustainable youth apprenticeship network in the state?
• Lessons for Future Funding Cycles
  • What adjustments could be made in future funding cycles to enhance the effectiveness and sustainability of the programs?
• Federal Alignment
  • How does this state-level initiative align with or diverge from federal apprenticeship and workforce development programs?