Can Apprenticeships Train the Workforce of the Future? States Hope So.

Mary Alice McCarthy was quoted in Governing magazine on the White House's proposed budget cuts to workforce and job training programs:

The strategy has its critics. “It makes no sense to say you’re going to grow apprenticeships and then cut workforce investment,” says Mary Alice McCarthy, a former federal education and labor official who oversees a center on education and skills at the left-leaning think tank New America. “These are very important systems for helping deliver apprenticeships, for helping reach employers, for helping recruit apprentices. You can’t grow the apprenticeship system if you don’t also grow these other workforce development and economic development systems.”

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What states are trying to do now is involve community colleges in providing the classroom training, so apprentices still receive an academic credential. An apprentice in manufacturing, for example, might also complete the program with an associate’s degree in applied engineering. “That’s what people want to see more of,” says McCarthy of New America. “If apprenticeships are going to succeed in industries outside of the building trades -- if it’s going to be a model for training health-care workers or IT workers or workers in advanced engineering fields -- the general feeling is that it needs to be better tied to our higher education system.”