It’s time for education and application to work together

Lonnie Emard

HAVING JUST SPENT three days in Washington, D.C., with nearly every organization that is impacting apprenticeship growth in this country, I can tell you that the United States is clearly at an inflection point. We’re at the crowded intersection where industry expansion and modernization, concern for traditional education, and the skills gap driven by technology and AI meet. The consensus of industry experts, bi-partisan government leaders, educational innovators, and apprenticeship intermediaries is that an immediate connection between learning and application is more essential now than ever before.

The fundamental basis of a successful apprenticeship implementation is exactly that, where industry requirements and educational equipping come together. Since 1937, apprenticeships had been a major segment of the workforce for licensed trades and construction, but it wasn’t until 2015-16 that increases in federal funding began to recognize apprenticeships in new occupations and new sectors.

I can speak personally to the experience of promoting apprenticeships in the early 2000’s. Back then I was in charge of the Managing People Program at BlueCross BlueShield South Carolina, and we began apprenticeships for several occupations in Information Technology. We grew from 1100 IT professionals in Information Services to more than 2500 in five years, but that growth was painful: We recruited at every major university in the Southeast, utilized experienced hires at every level, and converted contract staff to apprentices and it still wasn’t enough to meet the demand! But the apprenticeship model did give us a method by which we could “grow our own” talent for application developers and infrastructure technicians.

Then as federal funding began being distributed to states to expand apprenticeships in sectors like IT, the number of apprenticeable occupations began to rise—but employer awareness of the advantages remained relatively low. It has taken 10 years for the numbers of apprentices in these new sectors to catch up to the numbers in the traditional trades. At the Apprenticeships For America (AFA) conference I attended in D.C., the message was clear that much of the credit for these gains can be attributed to intermediary sponsors, such as Apprenticely.

In fact, our own organization was recognized as one of the few to have “cracked the code” in employer engagement. Our operational model has taken the cumbersome and administrative requirements off the employer’s plate and allowed the employer to focus on the right person getting the skills to be productive and enjoying career advancement, thereby reducing turnover. Return on Investment for apprenticeships shows that for every $1.00 invested, an employer sees a $1.88 return.

There is an imperative for the number of apprenticeships in America to grow exponentially. The question is, where are these apprentices going to come from? Our approach has been to open the aperture to all Arkansans, meaning accessibility to individuals no matter what (experience and data tell us that the population of apprenticeship candidates includes four-year degree seekers and college graduates). As our Executive Director, Bill Yoder, says, “Come one, come all.”

That said, in these changing times much has been made of the issue that apprenticeships are in direct conflict with the college education pathway. Once again, the experts at the AFA conference, across all constituencies, contend that the college path is not for every individual and that alternate pathways should be more available to students after high school.

A new book called Apprentice Nation, by Ryan Craig, was premiered at the conference and makes plenty of strong comments on the changing landscape of higher education. It spends time using data to demonstrate the necessity of apprenticeships to meet the needs of industry for many more occupations than those that would absolutely require a four-year degree.

This led to conversation about current government evaluation of budgets, spending, waste, and value. Recent budgets would say that investment in education has been roughly $500 billion, whereas investment in apprenticeships has been around $400 million. Given the trends within industry and our need for worldwide competitiveness, it seems that the ratio is out of balance.

Here’s an excerpt from the book:
“Investing in apprenticeships is just as important as making college affordable, if not more so. Of course, apprenticeships are also more important than ever in the wake of big federal infrastructure investments and bold steps to recreate an industrial policy. These big bets will lead to millions of open jobs that we don’t yet have the skilled workers to fill. With no time to waste, we can’t expect colleges and universities to solve this challenge alone. We’ll need apprenticeships to bridge the gap and help the country make good on its promises to rebuild our infrastructure and reinvigorate our manufacturing economy.

“But there’s still a long way to go. Compared with college, apprenticeships are woefully underfunded at the federal level. They also suffer from a marketing problem, since college has had such a hold on the American imagination that many young people and their parents think of apprenticeships as a ‘second tier’ option—if they think of them at all. Perhaps most importantly of all, they’re not easy to set up and run, which is why most companies have shied away from the model.”

There are two aspects of this commentary that deserve attention, because of efforts that have been proven or are currently in process. First, it’s the very last sentence in that quote that I want everyone reading this article to pay attention to. Because Apprenticely has made setting up and running an apprenticeship program easy for employers, and that’s why 185 companies that we work with have embraced the model. We continue to talk with employers every day, consulting with them and informing them of the strategic, operational, and financial advantages of apprenticeship programs. It takes all of us to ensure that every employer is fully aware of the options they have to use an apprenticeship program.

Secondly, the higher education direction is moving toward “degreed apprenticeships,” in which that learning model can be integrated into an apprenticeship driven by business demand, focusing on the immediate skill requirement. In that case, higher education continues over a longer duration, during which individuals learn and earn, reducing college debt while adhering to the long-term goal of degree completion. Intermediaries on behalf of employers, working with higher education, are making these possibilities happen. This can provide the answer to the innovative redistribution of the federal funding.

Here in Arkansas, we have demonstrated our active role in the Apprenticeships for America movement. It’s a movement that affects, and benefits, everyone.
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Lonnie Emard is Apprenticely’s National Apprenticeship Director.