Key Points
• Earn-and-learn work-based education through apprenticeships is a promising and growing pathway to good jobs and other opportunities.
• To be successful, any effort to expand apprenticeship programs will have to brand and market them as genuine and effective pathways to jobs and opportunity.
• By valuing both educational and employment outcomes, the new apprenticeship degree paradigm makes the nation’s opportunity infrastructure more flexible and pluralistic.
Earn-and-learn work-based education through apprenticeships is a promising and growing pathway to good jobs and other opportunities—both for young people and for adults looking to switch careers. Those in apprenticeship programs earn a living by working, learn from mentors in the workplace and classroom, and receive an employer credential while taking on little to no student debt.
The recent popularization of the earn-and-learn model has spawned new forms of apprenticeships across the US, including apprenticeship degrees that combine work experience with the pursuit of a traditional college degree pathway. This work-based degree model aligns with Americans’ desire for more flexible, pluralistic pathways to opportunity. It also broadens the mobility and opportunity structure by recognizing and valuing diverse pathways to human flourishing beyond the pursuit of a traditional college degree.
