From Moment to Movement: Celebrating the First-Ever Youth Apprenticeship Week

When New America and a coalition of national organizations and philanthropies launched the Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship in 2018, our moonshot goal was to establish apprenticeship as a mainstream post-secondary option for American youth. We hypothesized that by doing so we would transform how the American education system prepares young people for adulthood and, in the process, fuel more inclusive, resilient economies. Six years later, our shared commitment to this vision remains strong. And I’ll be the first to admit that we still have a lot of work to do to achieve it. Systems, policies, and minds change slowly. Movements are not made overnight.

But there has also been a tremendous amount of progress in the field of youth apprenticeship. For one thing, it was hardly a field at all six years ago. But, after years of growth and deliberate field-building efforts, more than 400 events took place this past week as part of the nation’s first ever Youth Apprenticeship Week celebration, organized by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). Public school systems, workforce agencies, labor organizations, industry associations, and a slew of intermediaries hosted breakfasts, showcases, signing days, info sessions and even one transportation industry “Roadeo” to demystify apprenticeship and to recruit young people into learn-and-earn opportunities available across the U.S.

In honor of this milestone, I’d like to share thoughts on some of the things that make me optimistic about youth apprenticeship’s future, as well as some of the big thorny questions we’ll need to answer in order to maintain momentum in the field.

First, the good stuff.

Youth demand for apprenticeship continues to grow. Even if it’s hard to get good national figures, we know that youth apprenticeship programs are growing, both in size and in number. In Wisconsin, where an apprenticeship model for high school students has existed for decades, participation set a new record in 2022-2023, with more than 5,700 businesses hiring 8,357 youth apprentices. Maryland’s youth apprenticeship programs, which launched with a two-county pilot in 2016, now exists in all 24 of the state’s counties, and has grown from just 27 apprentices to more than 600. Some of the public-private partnerships in PAYA’s 70-member virtual learning network have launched youth apprenticeship programs in just the past few years. Collectively, they enroll more than 13,500 apprentices training for roles in 15 industries.

Nationally, DOL data indicates that the number of 16 to 24 year olds in the Registered Apprenticeship system has increased 120 percent from 2014 to 2024. The vast majority of these apprentices are in traditional Registered Apprenticeships, so it’s not possible to extrapolate a rate of growth in youth apprenticeship programs. Still, it’s encouraging evidence that apprenticeship can be an attractive post secondary option for young people, who are increasingly interested in on-the-job training and seeking shorter, more affordable routes into the labor market.

Designed intentionally, youth apprenticeship can deliver equitable outcomes. In 2022, analysis from JFF revealed that Registered Apprentices between the ages of 16 and 24 experience racial and ethnic disparities in participation and occupational segregation by both race and gender, as well as the wage gaps that occur as a result. These patterns persist across the Registered Apprenticeship system; they are not unique to youth. But they are not the kind of outcomes we want to perpetuate as we expand apprenticeship opportunities to young adults.

Fortunately, as I’ve argued elsewhere, evidence is emerging that youth apprenticeship programs designed to deliberately address inequities in our systems of education and work can yield better results for young people. Using data from CareerWise Colorado, the Harvard Project on the Workforce found that ‘‘nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of CareerWise students achieve the program’s stated goal of serving as an “Options Multiplier”— they transition on to post-secondary education, employment, or both.’’ New America currently funds 14 innovative partnerships across the U.S. that are working to build and grow programs aligned to PAYA’s definition and principles for high-quality youth apprenticeship. It's early days for many of them, but their participants are more diverse in terms of race, gender, and ethnicity than we see in the registered system overall. Perhaps more importantly, they’re completing their programs and earning credentials at high rates, too. The field needs more high-quality programs and better data about what makes them effective, but with more resources than ever to support program development, it’s well on its way.

States have entered the chat. State leaders have begun to see the potential benefits of youth apprenticeship as a postsecondary strategy, especially as college costs continue to rise, attainment gaps persist, and labor markets remain tight. States like North Carolina, Colorado, Iowa, and Maryland invested COVID recovery dollars to fund youth apprenticeship program development. Others, like Indiana and California have passed legislation to define or chart a path forward for youth apprenticeship. Most encouragingly, states are also thinking deeply about how to build systems to strengthen and sustain programs, and to integrate youth apprenticeship within secondary and postsecondary education systems—a key strategy for scale. Six states are working to develop blueprints to expand youth apprenticeship through the National Governors Association’s inaugural Policy Academy to Advance Youth Apprenticeship this year.

This is all exciting news for youth apprenticeship, and for the apprentices, employer partners, educators, and program leaders who are paving this new pathway to opportunity. But it’s too soon to declare victory. Despite encouraging growth, promising program innovations, and expanding policy support, there are many complex questions that the field will need to answer before youth apprenticeship can become a mainstream post-secondary option. Here are some big ones:

What’s the best model? And can it be scaled? Youth apprenticeship is not currently defined at the federal level. Recent regulatory efforts and legislative proposals have sought to introduce clarity, but have taken very different approaches. Many states have adopted their own definitions, most of which resemble robust pre-apprenticeships. Others explicitly require youth apprenticeship to meet the standards of a traditional Registered Apprenticeship.

This patchwork of definitions has aided the field’s growth to some extent. It’s provided flexibility for program adaptations that have made it easier to serve high school students, who often face significant time constraints. It has also allowed for the growth of innovative programs (typically pre-apprenticeships) designed to meet the unique needs of out-of-school youth. But it’s also caused a lot of confusion for young people, their families, and the education and employer partners that must cooperate to provide apprenticeship experiences, however they’re defined.

The patchwork has also made it difficult to collect data that can tell us which of these models can deliver value and close opportunity gaps. Without solid evidence of what’s working, it’s going to be hard to make a case for the money—and the time—to scale good ones. And if bad ones proliferate, it puts the whole field at risk.

Let me be clear: There’s room in the field for more than one model. But if we want youth apprenticeship to become mainstream, the field needs to better understand how they differ, as well as what’s working and what’s not. Clear definitions and better data can help.

What is it going to take to shift employers from consumers to co-developers of talent? The U.S. lacks efficient and effective ways to organize employers around talent. Some chambers of commerce do this. Some industry associations do, too. In youth apprenticeship, intermediaries are playing an increasingly important role in recruiting and supporting businesses, but they rely largely on door-to-door recruitment, which can be inefficient. And intermediaries themselves can be complicated to operate and finance.

In countries where apprenticeship plays a significant role in talent development, there are publicly-funded systems in place to engage industry as partners in the education and training ecosystem. Employers in nearly every sector do more than hire: they help create industry-specific training standards and assessments, they incentivize professionals to work as trainers, and they fund training directly and through tax schemes. Many larger firms invest in in-house capacity to facilitate on-the-job learning, too (and not primarily for senior staff and managers, as is often the case in the U.S.). And subsidies exist to help small businesses and start-ups build capacity to do so.

If we’re serious about growing apprenticeship in the U.S. we need to build a strategy for engaging employers in the education and training enterprise at a much greater scale—not just as consumers of talent, but as true partners and stakeholders in its development.

What’s the strategy for funding youth apprenticeship? Several of Indiana’s new Intermediary Capacity Building Grants went to support youth apprenticeship intermediaries. Washington State’s Career Connect Washington has provided similar resources. And several states dedicated one-time pandemic recovery dollars to youth apprenticeship. But Wisconsin is the only state—to my knowledge—that appropriates funds to specifically support youth apprenticeship on an annual basis.

On the federal level, the DOL invested roughly $50 million in youth apprenticeship in 2019 through the Youth Apprenticeship Readiness Grants ($42.5 million) and the Youth Apprenticeship Intermediaries contracts ($7.7 million). These two impactful investments expire this year, with no new resources dedicated specifically to youth apprenticeship on the horizon (though several recent investments, including the Apprenticeships Building America opportunity, can support youth in Registered Apprenticeship). This will leave a major gap in the landscape at a critical time in the field’s evolution.

To maintain momentum in the field, federal, state, and local leaders need to develop more clear funding models that support partnership and program development, as well capacity and infrastructure to support implementation long-term. They’ll also need to understand how to better leverage existing resources, such as those available through secondary and postsecondary CTE programs, state dual enrollment programs, and the public workforce system. And, of course, state and federal leaders will need to fund those systems adequately.

Wisconsin, as I’ve said, is a good place to start for a solid system-based approach to funding youth apprenticeship. California’s Apprenticeship Innovation Funding model is an intriguing approach, too. And the STEM Education and workforce resources in the CHIPS and Science Act (not to mention recent infrastructure investments and tax incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act) are another underexplored opportunity for the field.

These are not small challenges, nor is this an exhaustive list. But I am encouraged by the growing demand for youth apprenticeship and especially by the expanding capacity and expertise that has emerged to support it—not only at the national level with the launch of organizations like Apprenticeships for America, the National Center for the Apprenticeship Degree, and the network of DOL-funded intermediaries, but also regionally, with networked efforts like Indiana’s iLab, Career Connect Texas, and the LAUNCH Apprenticeship Network field-building closer to home.

In 2018 and 2019, it felt like youth apprenticeship was having a moment. Then came the pandemic, and it seemed possible the emerging field might peter out. But today, as the nation’s first ever Youth Apprenticeship Week celebration comes to an end, it’s clear it has not just survived, but continued to grow and evolve. That moment is fast-becoming a movement.

Apprenticeship is still not a mainstream post-secondary option for American youth. But, it’s well on its way—and that is worth celebrating.

Happy Youth Apprenticeship Week to all who celebrate!