Five Trends & Challenges in Youth Apprenticeship Program Implementation

Since 2019, New America and the PAYA National Partners have invested in place-based partnerships working to launch, grow, and improve youth apprenticeship programs aligned to PAYA’s Definition and Principles for High-Quality Youth Apprenticeship. In our third round of grantmaking in 2023, we renewed support to 14 dynamic partnerships working in 13 different state contexts. Each year, we collect data and reflections from these grantees to better understand the dynamics of their context and partnerships, the structure of their programs, and the challenges they encounter as they work to expand economic opportunity through youth apprenticeship.

Over the past several years, we’ve learned that our grantees’ experiences are a useful bellwether. The information we collect from them helps us track common barriers, innovative solutions, and emerging trends in the fast-growing field of youth apprenticeship. So that the broader field can learn from their experiences, we’ve summarized some of the most commonly cited challenges and trends that our grantees shared in their fall reflections – and provided resources to help other programs that may be encountering similar issues and opportunities in their work. (For a separate post detailing the grantees' reflections on their programs' alignment to the PAYA Principles, read this recent post from PAYA's managing director, Sarah Oldmixon.)

Successful youth apprenticeship programs rely on close cooperation of partners across K-12 education, higher education, and businesses. Often, workforce boards and community partners play a role, too. Successful public-private partnerships require a shared vision for the program, a common language to describe it, and a clear sense of each partner’s role in making it a reality.

But as partnerships and programs evolve, so too can their goals, roles, and relationships. PAYA grantees have found that staff turnover, local and state elections, and program expansion efforts (e.g. adding new pathways or major new partners) can strain partnerships and require organizations to revisit and reaffirm foundational aspects of their cooperation. Below are some tools that can help communities establish and grow strong youth apprenticeship partnerships:

• PAYA’s National Definition & Principles for Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA Partners)
• Memoranda of Understanding between Youth Apprenticeship Partners (Madison Metropolitan School District) and an Intermediary & Business Partners (CareerWise)
• Distributing the Core Functions of a Youth Apprenticeship Partnership Tool (New America)
• Equity in Youth Apprenticeship Programs: A Toolkit for Partners (NAPE)

Our grantees’ experience confirms that a major challenge in developing youth apprenticeship programs is providing related technical instruction (RTI)—that is, the academic component of an apprenticeship—that both leverages existing education programs and infrastructure and meets employers’ needs.

Ensuring these RTI pathways include transferable postsecondary credit can be an added challenge. While some issues are structural in nature—for example, a high school may have limited CTE options or a college might offer relevant coursework, but through its not-for-credit training programs–we know that creative solutions exist to many common challenges. Sometimes, partners simply need to see examples of these solutions to begin charting a way forward in their own context. If we’ve learned anything from our grantees and Network members, it’s this: there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to building RTI pathways. The resources below emphasize this point, and highlight some strategies local and state programs have used to build pathways and tackle challenges.

• Youth Apprenticeship in Action: PAYA Principles in Practice (JFF)
• Creating Pathways to College Degrees through Apprenticeship (New America)
• “Maryland’s Approach to Youth Apprenticeship Expansion: Leverage CTE Infrastructure” (New America)
• Example Program: Industrial Maintenance Tech - OJT & RTI (Trident Technical College/Charleston Regional Youth Apprenticeships)
• Example Program: Junior Coder Youth Apprenticeship Program Timeline, Competency Set, and Credential Options (CareerWise)

Employers are critical drivers of youth apprenticeship, but PAYA grantees have encountered challenges recruiting them before, during, and after the pandemic. It can be difficult to communicate the benefits of youth apprenticeship to employers, especially when it is a new post-secondary option in a region. PAYA grantees have also encountered challenges convincing employers to switch from being consumers of talent to being co-developers of it, which is an important paradigm shift at the heart of the apprenticeship model. And different industries face different challenges when it comes to recruiting and training talent, employing minors, and offering opportunities for career growth.

Though the field has a lot to learn and improve when it comes to employer engagement, some helpful resources exist to help program leaders with recruitment, support, and retention:

• Strengthening Employer & Industry Engagement: A Self-Assessment Tool (NGA)
• Employer Facing Infographic (New America)
• Mentor Guide for Registered Youth Apprenticeship Programs (Urban Institute)
• State Youth Labor Laws & Worker’s Compensation Scan (JFF)

Youth apprenticeship programs sit at the intersection of the K12 education system, higher education, and the public workforce system—each of which has its own rules and requirements around data collection and sharing. Over the course of a youth apprenticeship, an apprentice is likely to appear in data collected by a high school, a college or training provider, and an apprenticeship agency—not to mention in employment and wage data. As we’ve learned from the PAYA grantees, this can make it difficult to track a youth apprentice’s journey from program start into the workforce and further education, which in turn creates challenges for programs in tracking and reporting on program outcomes, and in collecting timely data to inform continuous improvement efforts.

Fortunately, many local and state-level program leaders have taken steps to increase data capacity, better connect data systems, and reconsider how youth apprenticeship appears in accountability data. With expert input from our grantees and the broader PAYA Network, New America and the PAYA partners have created resources to assist youth apprenticeship leaders’ efforts to strengthen data practices:

• Youth Apprenticeship Data Framework (New America)
• Unpacking the Youth Apprenticeship Data Framework: Planning for Collecting & Sharing Data Across Partners (New America)
• Building a Youth Apprenticeship Data System: A Starter Kit (Advance CTE)
• Improving Youth Apprenticeship Data Quality: Challenges & Opportunities (Advance CTE)

The PAYA grantees are especially excited about building or expanding youth apprenticeship pathways in healthcare and education, two fields experiencing acute labor market shortages around the country. Across the field of youth apprenticeship, we see momentum around programs that train Certified Nursing Assistants, teacher’s aides, and other entry-level roles. These jobs can be valuable stepping stones for careers in healthcare and education, but turnover in these occupations is high, wages tend to be low, and employer-sponsored benefits are not always available. And, importantly, we know that low-income women of color are disproportionately represented in both roles.

To create youth apprenticeship programs that address occupational segregation and expand economic opportunity, program leaders must ensure education and healthcare apprenticeships put young people on clear, attainable pathways to mid- and upper-level roles in healthcare and education–jobs like Registered Nurses and K-12 classroom teachers, which often require associates and bachelors degrees. Youth apprenticeship programs that provide paid work experience and a low-to-no-cost education that counts toward degrees and other valuable occupation credentials can both meet employers’ needs, while also positioning apprentices for greater economic opportunity. Some recently released resources can help:

• Youth Apprenticeship in Healthcare: Success Stories & Resource Guide (H-CAP)
• Apprenticeship and the Future of Nursing (New America)
• New York State Educator Workforce Development Hub (EdHubNY)
• Program models from West Virginia and Brazosport ISD, TX
• How Teacher Apprenticeship is Changing Teacher Preparation (New America)

These resources and several others created by New America and the PAYA National Partners are available currently on PAYA’s Our Resources Page. Check back in early 2024 for more information PAYA’s soon-to-launch Youth Apprenticeship Resource Library, which will be a searchable collection of these and other resources created by experts in the field.