IV. Key Considerations for Degree Apprenticeship Expansion

Once institutions decided they wanted to integrate apprenticeships and degree programs and began developing degree apprenticeship opportunities, it became a new way of doing business. With time, this promising strategy to meet labor market needs could expand significantly. Our research has yielded six key takeaways as degree apprenticeship garners more interest. These are listed below.

1. Degree Apprenticeship Programs Are Typically Small

The number of students enrolled in some degree apprenticeships is a fraction of the number of individuals enrolled as regular students in degree programs. The small size of some programs is consistent with employer demand for prospective apprentices in the community. In other cases, program size is constrained by limited resources.

At Calhoun Community College, for example, approximately 20 percent of the students enrolled in the associate degree nursing program are also in a Registered Apprenticeship. Calhoun leaders said they had limited capacity to enroll more students in nursing apprenticeships, in part because of the time and complexity of implementing nursing apprenticeships, but also because the supply of nurses willing and able to serve as mentors was limited. More resources for degree apprenticeship development and implementation could overcome some of those constraints.

In other cases, programs are purposefully small to match local labor market need. In Ft. Morgan Schools, a rural-serving district in Colorado, staff said the number of apprentices in the school is shaped by projected job vacancies. Adrianna Nickell, principal of Pioneer Elementary in Ft. Morgan, described thinking years ahead to potential retirements and new positions, where an apprentice could fill that opening. Currently, there are four teacher apprentices at Pioneer. While a small number, these apprenticeships proceed along a clear path into employment.

2. Public Funding Is Key to the Growth of Degree Apprenticeships

A Department of Labor grant to Harper College was instrumental in its development of the first degree apprenticeship programs in Illinois, and other colleges have used grants to build out their apprenticeship offerings to include degree programs. Grant funds, for example, can pay for employer outreach, faculty time to enhance degree programs to address employer requirements and to assess whether on-the-job learning is equivalent in rigor and content to a regular college course, or wraparound services. State funding for the tuition waiver for recent high school graduates in North Carolina and for the Talent Together teacher apprenticeship initiative in Michigan, for example, has fueled the growth of high-quality degree apprenticeships in those states.

Alabama had a tax credit at one time, but Josh Laney, former director of the Alabama Office of Apprenticeship, reported that it had been “wholly ineffective overall” because the tax burden in Alabama is so low. He also said that “the ‘delayed gratification’ aspect of the tax credit also made it less appealing. Their tax guy might notice the small credit at the end of the year but that doesn’t have the same impact as getting an actual check in the mail.” He thinks the state’s current cash incentive program is more effective. For up to three years, employers who register a new program or occupation may be reimbursed for 50 percent of the wages paid to up to 10 apprentices for up to 480 hours of on-the-job learning.¹

In Michigan, state policy has played a key role in the emergence and growth of teacher apprenticeship. In 2023, the legislature allocated $66.4 million to Talent Together, the partnership of school districts using apprenticeship to get newly certified teachers into classrooms.² The move was aimed at combating the state’s teacher shortage, which Jack Elsey of Michigan Educator Workforce Initiative described as one of the worst in the country. This funding supports Talent Together staff, last-dollar tuition scholarships at colleges, mentor teacher stipends, and apprentice salaries in the final year of the program.³ Schools across the state got on board. “We got a lot of uptake because we made it easy for districts to say yes financially,” Elsey said. In 2025, Talent Together received a second allocation of $12.5 million from the legislature.⁴ Elsey and his colleague Gina Zuberbier at Talent Together hope to see these bipartisan investments in teacher apprenticeship continue, but recognize that they are not guaranteed.

Policymakers can increase degree apprenticeship opportunities if they commit more funds to their replication. Public funds will be critical to establishing new models and helping them gain traction while they recruit employer buy-in/investment and seek strategies for sustainability.

3. Accreditation Guidelines and State Regulations Pose Barriers to Expanding Degree Apprenticeships

Historically, students preparing for many allied health careers have been required to complete hundreds of hours of clinical experience without compensation. Sometimes, unpaid clinical experience mandates are embedded in program accreditation guidelines for associate degree programs, as with respiratory therapy.⁵ In other cases, they are the result of misinformation. For example, people at several colleges expressed frustration that they could not convert surgical technology associate degree programs into degree apprenticeships because program accreditation rules prohibit payment for clinical experiences. However, the accreditor for surgical technology programs has stated in writing that clinical experiences can be paid under certain circumstances and affirmed that “Registered Apprenticeships can provide an alternate pathway for the profession of surgical technology when the curriculum is developed with the goal of patient safety.”⁶

Similarly, confusion about state licensure requirements can be a barrier to implementing degree apprenticeships in allied health. For example, based on information they received from the state, some community colleges in Illinois believe that clinical experiences in nursing programs must be unpaid in order to meet the requirements for state licensure as a registered nurse, though we were unable to find a statutory or regulatory basis for this view. Heartland Community College has structured its associate degree nursing apprenticeship program to comply with its understanding of state licensure requirements on paid clinical experience hours while also ensuring the program is financially viable for learners. The employer pays nurse apprentices a monthly stipend to help offset their living expenses so that they do not need to work another job to make ends meet. Apprentices also do paid work for a minimum of four hours per week for the employer in non-clinical roles, which does not count toward the apprenticeship’s on-the-job learning hours. Instead, apprentices complete all of their paid on-the-job learning hours after earning the associate degree in nursing and passing their licensure exam.

State licensure requirements or how they are interpreted also may be an obstacle to degree apprenticeships in allied health occupations. Alabama has demonstrated how creative, collaborative leadership can modify state licensure requirements for registered nurses to create opportunities for degree apprenticeships. The Alabama Office of Apprenticeship (AOA) pursued another strategy. In 2021, Meredith Smith, then assistant director of AOA and now its director, worked with the Alabama Board of Nursing, employers, and some higher education leaders to convince legislators to authorize the Board of Nursing to establish standards for student nurse apprenticeships and to issue student nurse apprentice permits to those enrolled in both a nursing education program and a Registered Apprenticeship. The clinical experience requirements for the nursing credential and licensure are fulfilled by the paid on-the-job learning that occurs during the apprenticeship within the scope of practice for each apprentice under their Alabama nurse apprentice permit.⁷ Complementary national leadership, technical assistance, and myth-busting are needed to address real or perceived barriers to degree apprenticeship in allied health program accreditation rules and state licensure requirements.

4. Colleges and Employers Need Clarity and Consistency About New Apprenticeable Occupations and the Registration Process

People at several colleges and leaders in creating degree apprenticeships expressed concern that guidance from the Office of Apprenticeship (OA) in the U.S. Department of Labor was sometimes inconsistent and idiosyncratic, shifting when the state apprenticeship training representative changed. Colleges that had sought to register new occupations reported that they had been rejected without a clear explanation. These concerns could be addressed by more clearly documenting OA procedures for the registration and designation of new apprenticeable occupations and widely disseminating this documentation.

Meanwhile, strong relationships between colleges, employers, and state apprenticeship leaders have facilitated the registration and program development process. Kelli Morris, director of Career Services and Cooperative Learning at Calhoun Community College, noted recent interest from a local employer who had reached out to the Alabama Office of Apprenticeship about the possibility of a degree apprenticeship program. She said, AOA staff alerted Morris about the employer’s interest and worked with her and a Calhoun faculty member to align the college’s offerings with the employer’s skilling needs. Early coordination among all stakeholders, led by AOA, has made the registration process clearer and simpler for Calhoun as its slate of degree apprenticeships continues to grow.

5. Few Degree Apprenticeship Programs Award Academic Credit for On-The-Job Learning

Where degree apprenticeships did not award credit for on-the-job learning, there was great interest among college and program leaders in identifying cost-effective and efficient strategies for doing so. States can accelerate their progress by establishing policies like the discretion that North Carolina gives its community colleges to award up to 16 credits for work-based learning in associate degree programs that are aligned with a Registered Apprenticeship. In Colorado, the law creating the state’s teacher degree apprenticeship program requires bachelor’s degree programs to “incorporate on-the-job training in meaningful and time-saving ways” by

• Offering 30 or more credits for successfully completing on-the-job training;
• Creating a residency model that integrates coursework and clinical experience that counts as 25 percent or more toward the degree;
• Embedding on-the-job learning into the homework or assignment requirements of 25 percent or more of the courses within the degree; or
• Operating a competency-based degree program.⁸

While these examples show the possibilities of maximizing credit for degree apprentices, they remain outliers in the degree apprenticeship space. Most college staff we spoke with reported that their programs were not yet able to offer credit for on-the-job training despite a desire to do so. City Colleges of Chicago, for example, plan to make offering credit for on-the-job learning a greater priority as they expand their apprenticeship programs. But getting there has been an uphill battle due to institutional accreditation requirements that mandate considerable time and effort from both employers and faculty. Connie Rutledge, executive director for Apprenticeship and Workforce Solutions at City Colleges of Chicago, explained that “it requires not only an employer who’s willing to give us all the curriculum for the on-the-job training [and] an outline of what they’re learning, but also a faculty member on our side to review all of that to make sure it’s actually in alignment with one of our courses.” She said that it was challenging to find time and resources for faculty to perform this role.

6. Degree Apprenticeships May Better Prepare Students for Some Careers than Standalone Degree Programs

Degree apprenticeship typically provides more hours of supervised, individualized occupational experience than standalone degree programs. For example, in traditional associate degree nursing programs, students complete at least 400 hours of clinical experience,⁹ which is usually unpaid. In Alabama’s model of nursing degree apprenticeship, student-apprentices spend at least 2,000 paid hours working individually with a registered nurse mentor. An administrator at a hospital in northern Alabama told us, “When you have nurses who have been trained one-on-one with a mentor, you have a safer environment. It doesn’t mean the traditional approach is wrong; it’s that this approach is better.”

Similarly, teacher degree apprentices receive at least 2,000 hours of paid on-the-job learning under the supervision of a mentor teacher, in contrast to traditional models of teacher preparation that use unpaid student teaching placements that last 14 to 16 weeks.¹⁰

The extensive practical learning that takes place with employers in a degree apprenticeship can also provide an effective way to prepare students for professional success in the community where they have trained. St. Vrain Valley Schools in Colorado, for example, has long had a robust education career and technical education pathway in which students can earn CU Denver college credit through dual enrollment classes. Many of these students would graduate high school, continue their teacher training in college, and end up as educators in different school districts. St. Vrain Valley faculty realized they were losing out on potential teachers. When “our program just ended at high school, we had this group of students that we were missing,” said Nicole Rudman, an education teacher who also leads the teacher apprenticeship program.¹¹

St. Vrain Valley now has an apprenticeship program that many of these young people participate in upon leaving high school. After students graduate, they can get hired as paraprofessional educators at a St. Vrain Valley school and continue earning and learning through the apprenticeship, already having earned credit towards their education degree through dual enrollment coursework. “[They] still stay in our community, work in our community, be that support that’s still needed within their family, and do this [apprenticeship] at the same time,” Rudman said.