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As members of the ATE community know, apprenticeships work. A number of recent reports have focused on the economic advantage that such programs provide. Notably, after completion, 87% of apprentices in the United States find jobs and the average starting salary of apprentice completers reaches upward of $50,000 a year. After six years, earnings of the average apprenticeship participant are 1.4 times greater than the earnings of non-participants.

In addition, apprenticeship programs in the United States don’t only help those who participate in them; they help the larger community as well. A recent Washington State study found that, for every $1 the state government spent to help a community college student enter and finish an apprenticeship program, tax payers received a whopping $23 on the investment.

Still, with all the evidence building for the effectiveness of apprenticeships, the U.S. has lagged behind other countries in implementing widespread programs. For instance, England, with a population one sixth the size of the United States, starts one million new apprentices each year. By contrast, the U.S. starts only 100,000.

But that is about to change. Based in part on the action plan presented by Vice President Joe Biden and the team of researchers and industry specialists he employed to study the relationship between education and the job market, the federal government has awarded $100 million for American Apprenticeship Grants.

The hope is to greatly expand apprenticeship programs in the United States, adding 100 new community colleges to the program and 15 new National Apprenticeship sponsors by the end of 2014. To accomplish that ambitious goal, programs will have to break out of the building and construction industries, where most apprenticeship programs have thrived, and into the burgeoning industries of advanced manufacturing, health care, and technology.

Whether or not the federal government achieves its partnership building goals on time, this is all very good news for community college students - and for ATE students in particular - who are looking for practical, hands on jobs with good earning potential.

Ready to Work: Job-Driven Training and American Opportunity
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/skills_report.pdf

National Standards for Strong Apprenticeships
https://www.scribd.com/doc/237795303/National-Standards-for-Strong-Apprenticeships

15 Economic Facts About Millennials
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/millennials_report.pdf

The American Apprenticeship Initiative: An Update
http://labor.ny.gov/apprenticeship/pdfs/american-apprenticeship-initiative-update-september-30-2014.pdf

Innovations in Apprenticeship
https://www.scribd.com/doc/240871777/Innovations-in-Apprenticeship-5-Case-Studies-That-Illustrate-the-Promise-of-Apprenticeship-in-the-United-States

Summary of Institute for Study of Labor
http://labor.ny.gov/apprenticeship/pdfs/ExpandingApprenticeshipinAmerica.pdf

The six links listed above will take readers to reports and presentations on the wide world of apprenticeship. The first link navigates to the Ready to Work report. Released by the White House in April of 2014, the report details President Obama’s “call to action” in his January State of the Union address, and outlines both the problems that employers are having in terms of finding skilled workers to fit their technical needs, and the solutions to that problem in the form of apprenticeships. The second link, released by the Center for American Progress, reviews the necessary National Standards for Strong Apprenticeships, and outlines what the government can do to establish apprenticeship as a viable form of certification that employers can count on. The next link, a list of 15 Economic Facts About Millennials, was gathered by the Council of Economic Advisers, and offers interesting statistics about the cohort born between 1980 and the mid-2000s. For instance, they are both the most educated and the most ethnically diverse generation in American history, and they tend to value community, family, and creativity in their work.

The American Apprenticeship Initiative update, featured fourth here, reviews the progress the Office of Apprenticeship has made over the past year, including forging new business partnerships with such organizations as UPS and SEIU. Fifth on the list is a link to the Center for American Progress’s Innovations in Apprenticeship, which features “5 Case Studies that Illustrate the Promise of Apprenticeship in the United States.” Lastly, have a look at the Summary of Institute for Study of Labor’s Policy Paper No. 46: Can the United States Expand Apprenticeship? Lessons From Experience. This 2013 presentation was prepared for the New York State Department of Labor Apprenticeship Training Council by a team of German researchers. It includes a number of interesting propositions, including the suggestion to redistribute funding from the Job Corps, which serves only 6,000 youth, to apprenticeship, which reaches over 400,000 participants.