Affordability: Funding Stream Complexity

Every program featured in this report aimed to maximize affordability for apprentices and sustainability for school districts and institutions of higher education (IHEs). Their approaches varied, based on the resources available in their state and local context or their program design, but we found that teacher degree apprenticeship programs in the most stable positions often had two major commonalities. First, they have moved away from the one-time and time-limited funding sources that launched their programs and have begun weaving together ongoing, often smaller, funding streams. Second, they take advantage of their positioning at the locus of workforce development, higher education, and K–12 to access funding from across these systems, at the state and local levels. 

Combining relatively small pots of money from different systems can be challenging. For example, eligibility rules or reporting requirements that differ considerably between funding sources can create administrative burden for programs. Moreover, a teacher degree apprenticeship can be more expensive than a traditional apprenticeship because the related instruction component involves two to four years of college coursework. Employers often cover the related instruction costs, and in fact, some states require them to do so.²³ School districts, however, do not usually have funds to pay for years of college tuition. And putting full tuition costs on the apprentice would defeat the purpose of apprenticeship as a more accessible, affordable pathway into teaching. 

Plus, tuition isn’t the only cost that teacher degree apprenticeship programs need to cover. There are progressively increasing apprentice wages, mentor teacher stipends, staff time to support program implementation and operation, and wraparound services, like transportation and child care.²⁴ These costs can be prohibitive for districts to take on without other sources of funding. 

Below, we highlight funding streams that teacher degree apprenticeship programs rely on to ensure their programs are affordable for apprentices, districts, and higher education partners.

As program leaders looked for creative ways to cover apprentice tuition, they often turned to state-based higher education scholarship programs. While these programs generally aren’t designed for teacher apprenticeship specifically, teacher degree apprenticeship participants can usually access them because they are pursuing a bachelor’s degree, if they meet other eligibility criteria. Some are straightforward merit scholarships like Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship.²⁵ Others target specific learner populations, like the Kansas Adult Learner Grant, designed for students over the age of 25 who are pursuing a bachelor’s degree.²⁶ The New York state legislature provides $6,000 to $8,000 per Registered Apprentice in State University of New York programs for related instruction, as well as $500 for emergency supports.²⁷

Many states also provide state or institutional merit-based scholarships and state financial aid programs for students training to become teachers. These include Kentucky’s Teacher Scholarship Program,²⁸ Kansas’s Teacher Service Scholarship,²⁹ or Colorado’s Teacher Recruitment Education and Preparation program.³⁰ While these are not designed specifically for apprentices, teacher degree apprenticeship participants are usually eligible for this funding, provided they meet program criteria. 

Youth-serving teacher degree apprenticeship programs often leverage dual credit funding to reduce tuition costs.³¹ Lower tuition rates negotiated between IHEs and districts, combined with state scholarships for dual credit, can provide significant savings to districts. Moreover, because district budgets often include a line item for dual credit tuition, leveraging these courses for teacher apprenticeship-related instruction doesn’t necessarily create a new or additional expense. 

In Nelson County Schools’ youth apprenticeship program, for example, apprentices take dual credit courses through Western Kentucky University or Elizabethtown Community and Technical College. Kentucky’s dual credit scholarships cover up to three dual enrollment courses.³² Since the scholarship doesn’t pay for all the courses apprentices need to take, the district uses its general fund resources to cover remaining dual credit costs. Still, the price the district pays for that coursework is considerably less than normal in-state tuition. 

Dual credit agreements aren’t always limited to high school apprentices. St. Vrain Valley Schools in Colorado and the University of Colorado (CU) Denver have an innovative partnership that allows both high school students in the education CTE pathway and adult paraprofessionals in the district’s Registered Apprenticeship program to benefit from the dual credit program. Dual credit courses for high school students are co-located with some courses for adult apprentices. These classes meet in district buildings, for students’ ease of access, and are taught by CU Denver-authorized district instructors. Both high school students and adult apprentices pay a reduced tuition rate and earn the same CU Denver credit.

Teacher degree apprenticeship programs are often eligible for federal higher education, workforce, and K–12 funding.³³ Unlike some of the competitive federal grants that jump-started teacher apprenticeship programs, none of the federal funding streams discussed here are dedicated specifically to apprenticeship, yet all of them have been leveraged to support teacher degree apprenticeship, though the ease of doing so varies. 

Pell Grants

Pell Grants, need-based federal aid, were a popular way to cover tuition, and many interviewees told us that at least half, if not more, of their teacher apprentices are eligible for Pell. Program leaders generally found Pell a relatively straightforward source to access, as long as students filled out their Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form. According to Heather Finley from the Georgia Department of Education, school districts and IHE partners collaborate to provide FAFSA completion support to ensure as many apprentices as possible can take advantage of the Pell awards for which they are eligible.  

WIOA

Federal workforce dollars through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), however, have proved a harder source for teacher degree apprenticeship programs to tap. WIOA can, in theory, cover on-the-job training, related instruction, and wraparound support costs for apprentices who face at least one barrier to employment. One program we looked at had success using WIOA funds: The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) sponsors its teacher apprenticeship program and uses WIOA dollars to cover related instruction costs. It’s one of many sources it leverages to pay for apprentice training, which Nevada requires program sponsors or employers to cover. 

Other interviewees reported that WIOA dollars were too hard to access and manage in support of apprenticeship. WIOA has significant participant eligibility restrictions, enrollment rules, and allowable uses, and it is underfunded. Missouri State University staff, for example, found WIOA to be “incredibly difficult to implement and support at a higher education level, mainly because of the cost of the reporting process,” and so decided to stop using the funding, according to Adamson. A 2025 WestEd analysis of five teacher apprenticeship funding models found that just two programs regularly accessed WIOA dollars, which they deployed to cover apprentice wages, tuition, and wraparound supports.³⁴

IDEA and ESEA

Some federal K–12 dollars can also support teacher degree apprenticeships. For example, in programs where apprentices are hired as paraprofessionals, districts may use federal funding from the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) or Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) to pay their salaries.³⁵ “A Title I district or a Title I building can use Title I dollars to just pay for an instructional aide, and that actually gives them significantly more flexibility because they can do so much with that,” one interviewee said. The interviewee added that this is not yet a universal approach in their state, describing districts that use this funding for apprenticeship as “forward-thinking.”

Some teacher degree apprenticeship programs have also reduced the tuition burden for students by awarding credit for on-the-job learning (OJL) or credit for prior learning (CPL). Students who earn this type of credit usually pay a small fee rather than the regular tuition cost.

Higher education partners are often against CPL because they do not want to lose tuition revenue. But CPL done well can bring more nontraditional students, and their tuition dollars, in the door by making higher education more financially and logistically accessible. Still, IHEs often need technical assistance to build a CPL policy that balances their financial health with affordability for students.

While this section has focused on how programs cover tuition, there are other costs that teacher degree apprenticeship programs need to cover. Below, we highlight two creative ways programs address tuition alongside these other expenses by taking advantage of their state or institutional contexts. Most programs won’t be able to leverage these particular approaches, but they can consider all the potential tools, resources, and advantages available to them based on their own contexts. Can any of them be leveraged in creative, unexpected, or new ways to support affordability? In New York State and at Reach University (in multiple states), the answer was “yes.”

Cost-Sharing Across Districts in New York

In New York, most school districts outside of the state’s major cities can access a state aid model to pool local funds for shared services and programs, including apprenticeship, through regional education agencies called Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES).³⁶ The state provides BOCES reimbursement aid to districts of between $.36 and $.90 for every dollar spent in a state-approved contract for shared services. This allows districts to recoup, and reinvest, a significant share of the money they spend on apprentice wages, mentor stipends, human resources support, and general program management for apprentices. EDHUBNY, a nonprofit intermediary and technical assistance provider for teacher apprenticeship in New York, has created a calculator that allows districts to input their budgeted apprentice costs, possible offsets, and the district BOCES reimbursement rate to see the net annual and hourly cost per apprentice.³⁷ “We put it in the hourly rate because that tends to be really impactful for [district leaders],” said Colleen McDonald, director of EDHUBNY. “For some districts, the fact is that they’re paying less than $5 an hour for…an educator-in-training in the classroom.” 

Keeping Costs Low at Reach University

Reach University, whose Teachers College degree apprenticeship program is available in nine states, has designed its programs to prioritize affordability for the apprentice, college, and district alike.³⁸ Reach is different from the other IHEs featured in this report, all of which are public colleges or universities. A small nonprofit private institution, Reach doesn’t have to contend with the bureaucracy of state higher education systems. Its leaders have the freedom to make decisions in service of its mission to reimagine the college degree to better serve working adults, and they have. 

Reach hires professors of practice—usually superintendents, principals, and teachers who mentor and instruct apprentices on the job and in seminars—which makes staffing more affordable since it does not hire full-time professors and centers the workplace as the central site of learning, a key aspect of Reach’s philosophy. Reach has one master liberal arts curriculum that students follow together as a cohort and treats any prior college credits a student might have as electives. This approach reduces the administrative costs of credit cross-walking and simplifies advising. And since school districts or intermediary partners lead recruitment to bring paraprofessionals, library aides, and other nonteaching school staff into the program, Reach spends relatively little on marketing and recruitment.³⁹

These measures serve a twofold purpose: “They deliver a lot of tremendous cost savings while delivering the high-quality benefits that come from job-embedded, experiential, contextual post-secondary education,” Joe E. Ross, co-founder, president, and CEO of Reach, said during an April 2025 WestEd webinar.⁴⁰