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For years, workforce commentators and policy experts have positioned apprenticeship and college as rivals in career training, often framing one as an ‘alternative to college’ rather than recognizing them as complementary career pathways. Articles from Forbes and spots on Good Morning America highlight apprenticeship as an “alternative” to college, a distinct option for career preparation and training. More jarringly, some writers pit the two against one another in an imaginary “skilled labor battle”. While these war metaphors might garner clicks, they are doing damage to the nation’s workforce strategy.
This framing prompts students, job seekers, and employers to view the two as diametrically opposed pathways, rather than different solutions for solving related workforce problems. This is emphasized further by the relentless “college for all” policy push over the last generation. Now that a college degree has been entrenched as the premier marker of social standing and professional potential, other career pathways are viewed with skepticism at best and outright disdain at worst. Perhaps this is why while 83% of the country wants more government support for apprenticeship, only 25% say they would recommend apprenticeship to a young person considering their post-high school pathway.
How Apprenticeship and College Differ
It’s true that apprenticeship and college are fundamentally different pathways in many respects. Higher education focuses on learning theory and concepts, whereas apprenticeship seeks to develop hard skills and abilities. Often, college students use their semesters exploring a wide array of topics in a given industry, whereas apprentices hone in on just the competencies necessary for a specific job. Ultimately, a degree demonstrates general professional capacity in a field, whereas completing an apprenticeship proves a worker’s capabilities.
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A degree demonstrates general professional capacity in a field, whereas completing an apprenticeship proves a worker’s capabilities.
These pathways also come with different investments and associated risks. College requires an increasingly massive upfront cost, and doesn’t guarantee a job upon completion. (It’s worth noting that on-time completion itself is a risk as well, especially among certain demographic groups.) On the other hand, apprenticeship’s specificity might unintentionally trap workers who later wish to pivot or explore other options, and long-term career advancement in some fields might be limited without a degree.
Why Apprenticeship and College Should Work Together
So, rather than trying to balance their relative advantages and drawbacks, apprenticeship and college education should act together to support a shared goal of developing a modern, qualified workforce. College provides a great foundation of conceptual and theoretical knowledge, which is critically important to developing a workforce that can solve complex problems. Apprenticeship trains skilled implementers who can create, adjust, provide feedback on and drive forward proposed solutions. Studies have also shown that graduating apprentices, having learned the latest technologies and best practices from their technical instruction, are essential for diffusing new information and ideas throughout an industry.
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Rather than trying to balance their relative advantages and drawbacks, apprenticeship and college education should act together to support a shared goal of developing a modern, qualified workforce.
More extensive collaboration between the education and workforce systems would yield numerous benefits. A report from New America emphasizes how combining these approaches would both expand apprenticeship opportunities and benefit those seeking to progress meaningfully in their industry:
Apprenticeship is held back in the United States because it cannot [independently] deliver the credentials — college degrees — required for career advancement. To make apprenticeship opportunities more widely available, we must connect apprenticeship to our higher education system, enabling people to be apprentices and college students at the same time.
So, how do we do this, and what can we expect the results to be?
Building Direct Pipelines from College to Career
First, we can seek to develop more direct pipelines between education and employment. Data from the New York Federal Reserve shows that unemployment among recent college graduates is higher than the average worker, and more than double that of other college graduates. Enabling students to transition effectively from classroom to workplace, facilitated by their educational institution and a partnering employer, would remove the professional gap many fall into upon completing their education. Apprenticeship degrees are an innovative and increasingly popular solution to this problem. Combining paid on-the-job training with a fully accredited degree program, students work in entry-level roles while simultaneously pursuing a related degree. This direct pipeline between college and career via apprenticeship would virtually eliminate student debt and fill massive workforce gaps in fields such as healthcare and education, where degrees are legally required for many positions.
Making Education and Work More Flexible
Second, we should enhance the permeability of our workforce and education systems. Our current model is like a set of fast-moving freight trains: once you begin a career, the momentum makes stepping away to further your education — or vice versa — nearly impossible. Surveys of US workers show that 42% have never taken a career break for any reason, with many of them highlighting negative impacts on future employment as a major contributing factor. We can instead look to the Swiss who have a robust vocational education system that runs all the way through the post-graduate level. Their occupational frameworks include “standards of excellence” for both school and work, encompassing not only technical capacities, but social and interpersonal skills as well. This allows workers to move easily between work and education, acquiring new and necessary knowledge along the way. If the US adopted a similar approach, we would see our workforce more naturally adapt their skills to meet modern challenges.
Aligning College Curriculum with Workforce Needs
Finally, post-secondary institutions should seize the opportunity to align their curriculum with the skills employers truly need. Whereas apprenticeship programs are framed around a set of core competencies, college degrees tend to be more generalized, including an array of coursework across many disciplines. A well-rounded, liberal arts college education undoubtedly has merit, but its resulting degree provides little insight into the actual competencies of a graduate. This “proficiency chasm” leads to lower retention and poor performance among early career employees. Fortunately, new tools are emerging to help colleges and universities match every course credit with a specific competency framework. Companies like Zal.ai and Spark+ Tech have developed technology to convert each course completion into a measurable competency. Broader adoption of this approach would not only create more job-ready graduates, but also allow colleges to more easily adjust their educational offerings to meet changing employer needs.
The false rivalry between apprenticeship and college makes for compelling narrative but poor outcomes. Instead, we should place our bets not in one corner of the ring or another, but rather on creating a strong workforce system that benefits everyone.
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The false rivalry between apprenticeship and college makes for compelling narrative but poor outcomes.
