Planting Seeds to Grow Apprenticeship

Community colleges are uniquely positioned to drive the expansion of Registered Apprenticeships (RAs) that policymakers broadly support. Their geographic reach, instructional expertise, existing infrastructure, and employer partnerships make them natural sponsors for apprenticeship programs. A longstanding commitment to equity further ensures these opportunities reach the workers who need them most. 

But how do we unleash that power?

Community colleges currently serve as the most common providers of related instruction for apprenticeships in emerging and non-traditional occupations. In addition, community colleges make excellent sponsors for RAs, managing the apprenticeship for an employer partner, completing all of the paperwork and recordkeeping, helping with recruitment, training mentors, and ensuring the program meets regulatory requirements and standards. As sponsors, colleges can be force multipliers for RA in a region, making it possible for small- and medium-sized businesses to hire apprentices that would otherwise be beyond their reach. However, Apprenticeships for America estimated that only about 20 percent of community colleges (208) were sponsors with active apprentices in 2023. 

To help more colleges make the leap from related instruction provider to sponsor, the Association for Community College Trustees (ACCT) is providing technical assistance to two cohorts of colleges on RA sponsorship through the Scaling Apprenticeship at Community Colleges Project.

One of the colleges in the first cohort is Lake Land College in Mattoon, Illinois, a small city in the southeastern part of the state. Lake Land has been an apprenticeship sponsor for five years, but it is expanding its programs with ACCT technical assistance. Officials there shared three factors a college needs to be an effective apprenticeship sponsor.  

First, dedicating one employee to managing apprenticeship operations on at least a part-time basis is vital, says Lesa Allsop, Lake Land’s Apprenticeship Coordinator. She works full-time in the school’s Center for Business and Industry in a regularly budgeted position, an indication of the school’s strong commitment to expanding apprenticeship. This clear focus keeps her on the move, promoting the power of RAs. “I can’t just sit in my office and build apprenticeships. I have to be all over the campus introducing myself. ‘Hey, I’m Lesa, did you know we have apprenticeships? I plant seeds and try to get people excited about it, and then hope that they’ll circle back around and say, ‘Tell me more.’”

The second essential part of Lake Land’s work as an RA sponsor is effectively reducing administrative tasks for employers. Allsop completes all of the paperwork associated with starting and operating the apprenticeship, consulting with the employer along the way. “The only thing employers have to do is keep track of those competencies, the on-the-job learning, and make sure that apprentices receive their wage increases.” While some colleges charge an administrative fee to employers for their apprenticeship sponsorship services, Lake Land does not. “Our college is here for the community, and this is one of our services,” explains Allsop.

Coordinating apprenticeship at a college like this requires specialized expertise. In addition to the support she receives from ACCT, Allsop herself is an apprentice in a Missouri-based program that prepares learners to be apprenticeship training and development specialists. Lake Land is using a portion of its Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act subgrant to finance her training. Through the related instruction and on-the-job learning of the apprenticeship, Allsop has created a policies and procedures manual, as well as formal applications for apprentices and employers. These tools keep things running smoothly for her and for employers engaging with Lake Land on apprenticeship.

The third part of effective RA sponsorship at Lake Land is reducing the burden for faculty. Allsop recalled one faculty member pushing back when she suggested they consider an apprenticeship. “They responded ‘I don’t have time for that.’ And I told them, ‘You don’t have to do anything. I’ll do it for you!’” And she does, taking the work associated with starting and keeping an apprenticeship running off the plates of college deans and faculty. Allsop’s outreach on campus is paying off, as more and more faculty are circling back when they learn how apprenticeship is boosting enrollment—and retention—at Lake Land. “I had a 100 percent retention rate this semester with my apprentices. People get excited when they hear that,” Allsop said. 

Christine Strohl, Dean of Workforce Solutions, is Lake Land’s apprenticeship champion. Under her leadership, the college has become more flexible in how it delivers instruction, which Allsop considers essential to making apprenticeship appealing to employers. Lake Land has shifted some programs to what it calls Tech 2Day, in which students are in class only two days a week, enabling them to work regular hours during the rest of the week. Though there was some faculty resistance to the 2-day schedule at the outset, the idea really took off, Allsop said, “when other parts of the college saw how the enrollment flipped and started increasing when it became more flexible and available to our employer partners and students.”

Thanks to the seeds planted by Allsop and the support of Strohl and others, apprenticeship has grown quickly at Lake Land, expanding to 14 occupations. It’s just the beginning. With technical assistance from ACCT, it will add at least two more. Serving as a sponsor for Registered Apprenticeship is just one more way Lake Land is fulfilling its vision of creating “Education that fits your life.”