Introduction

Matthew Dempsey knew it was time for a change. Originally from the border of Alabama and Mississippi, he had been pursuing his passion for helping others through the ministry, completing a bachelor’s degree in theology and enrolling in a master's degree program in seminary divinity in Knoxville, Tennessee. But he was struggling to make ends meet and support his growing family. When he and his wife decided to move back home, he used the move to also seek out a new vocation. Nursing was an obvious choice. He had always been interested in the medical field, there was high demand and good pay for nurses, plus he would be caring for people.

But becoming a nurse meant returning to college, which takes time and money, both of which were in short supply for Dempsey. Indeed, for many adult students, the need to make a living while in school is the greatest barrier to completing their degree. The more time students spend working, the less time they have to devote to their studies.

Coastal Alabama Community College (CACC), where Dempsey enrolled in a nursing program, has developed an innovative solution to this common challenge facing its students: an apprenticeship program. In contrast to a traditional nursing program, CACC’s student-apprentices are able to combine work and learning seamlessly, earning both wages and credit for structured on-the-job training (OJT) in a health care setting that is relevant to their future career.

“It's almost too good to be true, except that it's not,” he said, describing the program.

Dempsey became an apprentice at North Baldwin Infirmary at the beginning of his second semester, and he works 24 hours a week. His job includes the clinical rotations that are necessary for him to complete his nursing degree, as well as valuable OJT. “Before I got this apprenticeship,” he said, “I didn't know how I was gonna pay for school.” With the apprenticeship, not only is he paid while completing his clinicals, but his tuition and books are covered too. In exchange, Dempsey agreed to work at North Baldwin for two years after he graduates, which he felt was fair.

And it’s not just the financial support that Dempsey finds so valuable. The apprenticeship also gives him access to a mentor in the hospital who helps him master skills he has learned in the classroom. “Just the wealth of experience it has given me,” he explained, “it's really difficult to put into words how incredibly valuable and how helpful that experience has been.” With typical rotations, he would have to wait until later in his education and take turns practicing skills with up to five other nursing students—and would not have been paid while completing them.

The apprenticeship program has had a huge impact on Dempsey and his family. “I'm incredibly grateful to North Baldwin Infirmary for giving me the opportunity, because it really did change my life,” he said. Dempsey’s experience encapsulates the promise of apprenticeship. It is a proven education and employment strategy that can address many of the financial and social challenges that prevent students from completing postsecondary education and transitioning into a good job. The result? The fabled win-win of apprenticeship programs: employers get well-trained employees and students get wages and on-the-job practice in their chosen field.

But these programs can be challenging to start and run effectively. To expand, apprenticeship needs intermediary organizations, which assess employers’ training needs and develop occupationally specific training packages to meet them. These intermediaries build and launch apprenticeship programs and coordinate activities across employers, education providers, and other apprenticeship partners. Many intermediaries also take the lead in apprentice recruitment, support, and post-program job placement.

Community colleges have long played a role in student career preparation and in providing work-based learning opportunities. Now they are increasingly stepping into this intermediary role, working more directly with employers and other regional partners to build and coordinate programs, while also providing coursework for apprentices. Community colleges can be well positioned to serve both employer partners and students. They are particularly well positioned to expand apprenticeship beyond the construction trades where they are most common, creating affordable and equitable pathways into careers in health care, information technology, business services, and other high-quality, high-demand jobs.

But developing and delivering apprenticeship programs requires robust relationships with employers, recruitment and support of apprentices, assessments for on-the-job learning, and mentorship training, roles that can be challenging for colleges. What it means to be an apprenticeship intermediary varies widely from one college to another, and while community colleges are well positioned to take on the role, they can hit barriers while trying to grow and sustain this capacity. Developing a cost model and determining who will bear which parts of the cost between employers, the college, and students; deciding if the program will be hosted on the credit or non-credit side of the institution; and finding alignment between employer needs and student interests are just a few issues that schools face when becoming apprenticeship intermediaries.

To better understand the challenges and opportunities facing community colleges that want to expand apprenticeship opportunities to their students, New America conducted a year-long study. We created an advisory committee to guide this work and spoke to apprenticeship, workforce development, and community college leaders about the community colleges role in expanding apprenticeship.

Based on these conversations, we chose case studies and conducted in-depth interviews with leaders from the Community College System of New Hampshire’s ApprenticeshipNH, Arapahoe in Colorado, San Jacinto in Texas, and Howard Community College in Maryland’s programs in IT and cybersecurity, and Coastal Alabama Community College’s nursing apprenticeship. Each of these colleges found a different way to fill the role of intermediary, taking on funding from different sources, using a mix of strategies for sponsorship, and finding place-based approaches to strengthening workforce partnerships. In a variety of sectors, these five colleges found ways to fill the intermediary role that worked for their context, and in doing so provided excellent programming that filled their community’s needs. This mosaic of case studies demonstrates that there are some common challenges and successful strategies that colleges looking to serve as apprenticeship intermediaries can learn from.