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Apprenticeships are the catalyst for opportunity – Crain’s Chicago Business

February 14th, 2021 7:08 pm

To build a diverse workforce that reflects the country and matches emerging employer needs, we must increase efforts to support students from high school through college with targeted training, on-the-job paid work experience, individualized supports, and career counseling.

Baker's experience highlights a key ingredient: "What really made it work for me was that everyone was committed to one common goal in creating a pathway for success."

Obtaining a four-year college degree is not essential for all students. In Illinois, 52 percent of jobs require education and training beyond high school, but not a B.A. degree. These high-demand fields include health care, medical technology and advanced manufacturing.

At One Million Degrees, our focus is on providing a range of supports to Chicago-area community college students and serving as a connector to employers. Across the state, 60 percent of public college students attend community colleges. Many, like Baker, are the first in their family to attend college and are working full-time jobs and supporting their families.

We are seeing employers across industries partner with educators and students to build on-ramps to in-demand jobs, especially through new apprenticeship programs. There's growing recognition that these programs can help address long-standing underrepresentation in lucrative fields among Blacks, Latinx and women, by providing both access and wraparound support.

Those supports, from stipends and transportation vouchers to child care and counseling must be aligned with the specific needs of each student. "Each individual is unique and needs different supports," says Baker, who found personal contacts for emotional support especially useful over the past year.

Chicago and the state of Illinois are leading the way. MAPP is but one of several new promising programs. Supported by health care providers Rush University Medical Center, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, NorthShore University HealthSystem, University of Chicago Medicine and Sinai Health System, plus West Side United, One Million Degrees and Malcolm X College, the program is designed to help students advance their careers in the health care sector.

The Chicago Apprenticeship Network has become a national model, with one of its founders, Aon, taking the program to six new cities. The strength of the Chicago program is its array of partners40 companies across 16 industries, City Colleges of Chicago and One Million Degreesas it plans to develop 1,000 apprenticeships.

One Million Degrees is also providing mentors to support Career Launch Chicago, an effort by the city of Chicago, Chicago Public Schools and City Colleges to provide high school students entering college with paid work experiences.

Research from the University of Chicago Inclusive Economy Lab on the impact of our support program for community college students shows increases in college enrollment, full-time enrollment and persistence. Our own analysis shows that our support of college apprentices contributes to high retention rates: 98 percent in our collaboration with Aon and 94 percent with MAPP.

We should be encouraged by the momentum around combining training and education opportunities. The state of Illinois is investing in apprenticeships across the state. President Joe Biden pledged during his campaign to make a $50 billion investment in workforce training, including community college business partnerships and apprenticeships.

Apprenticeships can be a bipartisan way of directing increased education and training support to closing skills gaps and should focus on expanding beyond the trades, where they are now concentrated, according to a new report from Brookings.

As Baker tells us, apprenticeships are the catalyst for opportunity. "For years, I kept telling myself that next semester I'd go back to school. MAPP opened the door for me to pursue my dream."

Paige Ponder is chief executive officer of One Million Degrees, a nonprofit providing support to community college students to help them succeed.

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Apprenticeships are the catalyst for opportunity - Crain's Chicago Business

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