Apprenticeship is engrained in America’s history — three of our Founding Fathers started their careers as apprentices. George Washington, for example, apprenticed as a land surveyor. Yet even with this 250-year runway, apprenticeships have not taken off in the United States as they have in other advanced nations.
In 2021, our country had 593,000 registered apprenticeships, mostly in traditional sectors such as building trades and heavy industry. As a share of their labor force, Great Britain, Australia, and Germany have roughly 10 times more opportunities. It is puzzling that the U.S. hasn’t followed its peers in scaling up apprenticeship, a training model that is also a job, allowing people to work and earn while they are learning the critical skills necessary for good jobs and careers. It’s an especially relevant model now, when most U.S. jobs require at least some postsecondary education and training, and when employers, even in our tight labor market, report a serious shortage of skilled workers in their fields.
While many progressives have seized on the panacea of “college for all,” the reality is that 62% of American adults have no bachelor’s degree, and that number rises to 72% for Black adults and 79% for Hispanic adults. Additionally, The college earnings premium appears to be declining for the first time in decades, with 40% of recent college graduates working in jobs that do not require a bachelor’s degree. Soaring college tuition costs, low completion rates, and heavy debt burdens are further pushing the American public to rethink the value proposition of a four-year degree.
Recent data proves this changing mindset. A fall 2021 survey of 1,000 high school students found that the likelihood of attending a four-year college dropped by nearly 20% in less than a year. In the spring of 2022, there were 662,000 fewer students enrolled in undergraduate programs than the previous spring, constituting a drop of 4.7%. And a report from the fall of 2022 elevated survey responses from more than 1,500 Gen Z youth and 600 employers, finding that 81% of employers think they should look at skills rather than degrees when hiring and 72% of employers stating they don’t see a degree as a reliable indicator of job preparedness.
It’s clear that America needs alternatives to a four-year degree that are affordable, trusted by employers, and help people learn the technical and digital skills that today’s jobs require. Our nation’s oldest pathway — apprenticeship — is a viable solution.
While apprenticeship pre-dated our nation, it wasn’t until 1937 that the U.S. passed the National Apprenticeship Act (NAA). This law established the Registered Apprenticeship Program (RAP) as it exists today. To meet the requirements of a registered apprenticeship, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), or a federally recognized state apprenticeship agency vets apprenticeships for quality and rigor. The work training curriculum must align with industry standards and enable apprentices to earn a portable, nationally recognized credential. Depending on the industry, Registered Apprenticeship can last from one to six years and typically includes 2,000 hours of on-the-job training and 144 hours of technical instruction. While originally developed for the skilled trades, these opportunities have been expanded into new and in-demand industries like health care, technology, and advanced manufacturing.
Even though the legislation is nearly a century old, registered apprenticeships continue to have an impact on economic security. Individuals who complete an apprenticeship earn an average annual salary of $77,000 compared to an average national salary of $55,000. Those who complete an apprenticeship program also earn an average of $300,000 more than those who don’t over the course of their career.
In addition to helping workers find good jobs and careers, these programs offer an array of benefits to employers. Apprenticeships help businesses boost recruitment; increase the diversity of their workforce; improve retention (94% of apprentices stay with their company after the apprenticeship wrap); preserve institutional knowledge; and leverage skilled, experienced workers close to retirement to serve as mentors and instructors. For roughly every dollar spent on apprenticeship, employers get an average of $1.47 back in increased productivity, reduced waste of time and cost, and greater front-line innovation.
Apprenticeship is a model employers can trust, helping to ensure talent is prepared for in-demand opportunities while also providing a quality postsecondary path for young Americans who are questioning the traditional four-year degree. It also is highly attractive to adult learners, who are older and have increased barriers to accessing and completing skill development opportunities due to child care or the need to keep working. Apprenticeships are the original work-education model, allowing adult learners to learn the skills they need without sacrificing a wage and providing education that is applied — ensuring learning connects immediately to the workforce.
To ensure more American workers and businesses benefit from these opportunities and keep pace with other partner nations, our country must dramatically scale up apprenticeship and create roughly 10 times more, reaching the end goal of 4 million apprentices in this country. To get to this number, it is not only a matter of boosting public investment, but also requires a new policy architecture in which public, nonprofit, and private intermediaries play a catalytic role in training and placing apprenticeships in companies.
