New Grant Focuses on States to Expand Apprenticeship

On Friday, October 21st, the U.S. Department of Labor announced the recipients of their $50.5 million State Expansion Grants. The purpose of these capacity-building grants is to help states incorporate Registered Apprenticeship into their workforce, education, and economic development systems.  Thirty- seven states are receiving between $700,000 and $3,200,000 to spend over an 18-month period. According to DOL, these grants, with their focus on building state capacity to expand their apprenticeship systems, are the first of their kind. For example, the Department of Career Services in Massachusetts will focus its $1.5 million grant on several sectors including Education, Culinary, and Healthcare that will serve apprentices who are low-income, women, and people of color.  Apprenticeship Hawaii’s $1.5 million award will expand the network of Healthcare employers within the state and establish new post-secondary career pathway models in other sectors.

(Please link to the ApprenticeshipUSA State Expansion Grant Summaries for a full list of grantees.)

These grants are the final installment of the $90 million’s worth of investments that DOL announced last Spring. The first installment of $10.4 million came in the form of the Accelerator Grants, which were awarded to 51 states and territories to support the rapid expansion of Registered Apprenticeship. Speed is important to DOL because they have an ambitious goal of adding 150,000 more apprentices to the system by the end of September 2017. To meet that goal, they will need to nearly double the rate of growth in new apprentices.

The next set of investments after the accelerator grants went to intermediary organizations that will help businesses set up their apprenticeship programs, recruit and retain apprentices, and work with training providers. The Department awarded 14 contracts totaling $20.4 million to a variety of industry associations, joint labor management organizations, workforce boards, and educational institutions for this purpose. Four of the contracts were awarded to support greater racial and gender diversity in apprenticeship, as part of DOL’s National Equity Partners Initiative.  The equity intermediaries will develop national or regional level relationships, called “opportunity partnerships” and provide technical assistance to apprenticeship sponsors and training providers.

Finally, the State Expansion Grants are the newest investment in apprenticeship.  Historically apprenticeship has not been connected to other state systems.  State expansion funds – which make up the majority of the $90 million earmarked for apprenticeship – are a large investment in building state capacity to develop relationships with key stakeholders. The grants are sort of a capstone investment in the Administration’s strategy – an acknowledgement that, for too long, registered apprenticeship has stood apart from state education, economic development, and workforce development systems, which has limited its ability to grow.

All of these investments in states and intermediaries complement the $175 million American Apprenticeship Initiative (AAI) grants awarded in September 2015.  The AAI grants funded 46 local public-private partnerships between employers, organized labor, non-profits, local governments, and educational institutions that are expanding high-quality apprenticeships into high-growth industries including Health Care, IT and Advanced Manufacturing over the next five years.

Altogether with AAI, DOL has invested $265 million to expand apprenticeships since just 2015. When we look across the different apprenticeship investments, we see a comprehensive and multipronged approach that includes funding for local program development, support of industry and equity intermediaries, and attention to the need to build state capacity.  But we still have a long way to go to build a truly national apprenticeship system that reaches across multiple industries and provides a pathway to good jobs for millions of Americans. The Obama Administration has laid down an impressive strategy and some important investments – but the next administration and Congress will need to work together to build on and deepen this work. With the rising cost of higher education and the growing demand for technical skills and knowledge, our economic future depends on it.