PAYA Renews and Expands Youth Apprenticeship Investments

The Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA) is pleased to announce renewed and expanded investments in high-quality youth apprenticeship programs across the country. Since 2019, PAYA has provided grant support to partnerships developing, launching, and running youth apprenticeship programs aligned to PAYA’s definition and principles for high-quality youth apprenticeship. This year, PAYA’s investment and technical assistance strategy includes two types of grants designed to meet the needs of partnerships at different stages of development: Sustainability Grants and Development Grants.

PAYA Sustainability Grants

PAYA renewed support to a cohort of 10 Sustainability Grantees, place-based partnerships working to scale and sustain youth apprenticeship programs. These partnerships, who have received PAYA funding in previous years, have proven to be leaders in the field—standing up and successfully running youth apprenticeship programs in over a dozen industries.

Over the course of the 18-month grant period, these grantees will focus on developing and implementing strategies to scale and sustain high-quality youth apprenticeship. In addition to the grant award, these grantees receive customized technical assistance, capacity building, and peer-to-peer learning supports, including access to national education, business engagement, and workforce development experts.

The following partnerships received PAYA Sustainability Grants:

• ApprenticeshipNC (Raleigh, NC)
• Ascend Indiana (Indianapolis, IN)
• Career Launch Chicago (Chicago, IL)
• Career Launch Kalamazoo (Kalamazoo, MI)
• CareerWise Greater Buffalo (Buffalo, NY)
• Early Care & Education Pathways to Success (ECEPTS) (Oakland, CA)
• Future Focused Education (Albuquerque, NM)
• LAUNCH Apprenticeship Network (Riverside County, CA)
• Project for Pride in Living’s (PPL) Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential (LEAP) Initiative (Minneapolis, MN)
• Reach Higher Montana (Helena, MT)

Over the past six years, PAYA-supported partnerships have seen encouraging growth and demonstrated the positive impact youth apprenticeship can create for students, employers, and communities. In 2024, PAYA grantees collectively posted their highest-ever number of participants, career pathways offered, and partners, representing growth across all three categories. Their enrollment and completion figures suggest apprenticeship programs intentionally designed to meet the needs of young people can deliver more equitable outcomes for participants underrepresented in the Registered Apprenticeship system. PAYA grantees have also worked to change perceptions of what apprenticeship is and who it is for. In these communities, young people and their families increasingly see youth apprenticeship as a valuable postsecondary option that provides a career and academic head-start for many types of students.

PAYA Development Grants

PAYA also awarded six Development Grants to partnerships designing and launching new youth apprenticeship programs. These grantees are in an earlier stage of development than the Sustainability Grantees but are similarly committed to standing up programs that align with PAYA’s definition of and principles for high-quality youth apprenticeship.

Over the 12-month grant period, these partnerships will work towards a goal of launching their youth apprenticeship programs. The support PAYA provides the Development Grantees—including customized coaching, technical assistance, and a peer learning community with fellow grantees—will be designed to help them achieve that goal by the grant’s conclusion.

The following partnerships received PAYA Development Grants:

• Ballad Health (Johnson City, TN)
• Educational Service District 123 (Pasco, Washington)
• Education Service Center Region 13 (Austin, TX)
• Florence City Schools (Florence, AL)
• North Carolina Business Committee for Education (Raleigh, NC)
• Rural Alaska Community Action Program (Anchorage, AK)

What’s Next?

The youth apprenticeship movement has seen tremendous progress since PAYA began in 2018. In addition to encouraging enrollment growth among our grantees, we’ve seen programmatic innovations and expanded policy support at local, state, and federal levels. Governors across the country have identified apprenticeship expansion as a top priority, and state legislatures regularly pass legislation to strengthen and bolster apprenticeship and align it more closely with our education system (over 46 new policies in 2023 and 2024!). These new and returning PAYA grantees have helped drive that momentum and will continue to build on it as they launch and scale programs over the next year.

But as PAYA’s director Taylor White noted last year, despite remarkable progress, there are still complicated challenges to resolve before youth apprenticeship is able to be a mainstream postsecondary option for young people. PAYA is committed to working with our grantees to address those challenges and sustain the energy and momentum for youth apprenticeship. Over the next 18 months, we will organize convenings, publish research and toolkits, and host webinars to help find solutions to those thorny questions and spotlight grantees’ efforts to overcome common barriers. Join us by signing up for the PAYA Newsletter, where we share PAYA activities and resources open to the public.