The Apprenticeship Wish List

Early in his second term, President Donald Trump announced an ambitious goal: to grow the number of new, active registered apprentices in the United States to one million. Consequent executive and legislative efforts have sought to expand apprenticeship programs in key areas, and the Labor Department has developed new guidelines to accelerate growth.

But many experts in the field say there’s still a massive gap between what the administration has done and the steps that could truly lead to that million-apprentice goal.

The No. 1 thing missing, they say, is money. The most recent House Appropriations Committee bill to fund labor, health and human services, and education proposes $290 million for apprenticeships, up $5 million from 2026. That’s on top of the $145 million to support a pay-for-performance incentive program announced earlier this year. But apprenticeship researchers and advocates say that scaling participation to that one million number is a distant dream without long-term investments in apprenticeship infrastructure and pay for instruction, staff, wages and employer incentives, where applicable.

Experts also say that the legislation and regulations governing apprenticeships are outdated. Congress has never reauthorized the National Apprenticeship Act of 1937 (NAA), meaning the legal framework for registered apprenticeships is extremely outdated—though proposals to reauthorize the bill spring up regularly. The foundational regulatory framework surrounding apprenticeships also hasn’t been substantively updated since 2008.

It’s not surprising, perhaps, that in a political environment as fraught as 2026’s, reauthorizing the NAA hasn’t been a top priority for Congress. Additionally, apprenticeships—despite having a strong return on investment for apprentices—are sometimes a less attractive option for legislators and others in the workforce development sphere than pathways requiring less up-front investment, said Aileen Ma, policy lead on P–20 pathways to postsecondary success at EdTrust.

“It genuinely does take a lot of work to start an apprenticeship program,” she said. “I think it’s a barrier for folks and, especially in some states, if there are other strategies that maybe don’t take as much up-front investment—those things can be more appealing.”

But as states and the federal government continue to increase their focus on skilled workforce development, the question of how to scale apprenticeships—a proven strategy that is expanding beyond the traditional trades—looms large. And experts say it won’t happen without serious buy-in—not just from states, which are currently leading the charge, but also from the federal government.

What’s Needed?

The right amount of funding could address a lack of infrastructure, from incentives for employers to participate in apprenticeship programs to wraparound supports for learners.

“I really do think the investment needs to be in the infrastructure to actually operate the system,” said Taylor White, director of postsecondary pathways for youth at the think tank New America. “We focus very much on new programs: build new programs, enroll more people. But we really skimp on the costs to do that. It’s not free.”

Enticing employers to participate in apprenticeship programs is part of the challenge. Apprenticeship programs require major buy-in from employers. And although earn-and-learn apprenticeships pay off for the apprentices themselves, it’s more of a crapshoot for employers: A study completed by the Urban Institute for the Labor Department found that about a third of employers lose money on apprenticeship programs. Still, the same study found that the median return on investment is $1.44, or $144 for every $100 invested.

Many states offer tax credits for employers that launch apprenticeship programs, some of which have proven successful, but there’s nothing direct at the federal level yet. Representative Nathaniel Moran and Senator Todd Young, Republicans from Texas and Indiana, respectively, filed legislation in April, timed with National Apprenticeship Week, that would create a payroll tax credit for employers who offer registered apprenticeships. But the bill hasn’t yet moved forward.

Taylor Maag, director of workforce policy at Jobs for the Future, said that the federal government could play a larger role in helping employers understand how apprenticeship can work for them.

“We haven’t really found the tried-and-true solution on employer engagement yet,” she said. “I definitely think federal policy could play a larger role in figuring out and helping facilitate that kind of employer strategy.”

Jonathan Woodward, vice president of teaching and learning at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, which offers apprenticeship programs for 24 occupations, said he wishes lawmakers would incentivize employers to allow workers to serve as instructors in the apprenticeship classroom. Finding qualified instructors—those who are willing to work for the wages MGCCC can offer—is the biggest obstacle his programs face, he said. But increasing the number of trainers is also the best way to scale, and it’s a win-win for the company.

“For each trainer, I can train 20 welders,” he said.

Woodward drafted legislation in Mississippi this year that would have provided a tax credit to any company whose employees served as apprenticeship instructors, worth that employee’s salary. But the legislation failed to move forward, with other bills taking priority this year, he said.

Experts have also called for funding for intermediaries, which are entities that help connect students, programs and employers and can play a critical role in helping employers understand the benefits of apprenticeship programs.

White, of New America, also noted that federal policy could be improved to ensure a greater balance between flexibility for employers and oversights that ensure quality. Overly rigid standards, she said, can chill employers from participating because they can’t customize programs to their needs—but standards that aren’t strict enough can lead to credentials that are meaningless.

We haven’t really found the tried-and-true solution on employer engagement yet. I definitely think federal policy could play a larger role in figuring out and helping facilitate that kind of employer strategy.”

—Taylor Maag, director of workforce policy at Jobs for the Future

In a perfect world, she said, “we would find a way to thread that needle … anything that smooths the process of registration without sacrificing necessary quality controls.”

Apprenticeship programs also need wraparound supports to be most successful, but many lack the funds to provide mentors or advisers to their students. That’s a problem for programs such as Pathways for Paraprofessionals at Missouri State University, which trains paraeducators, some of the lowest-paid staff members at Missouri schools, to be special education teachers.

Jon Turner, an associate professor of special education, leadership and professional studies at Missouri State and a founder of the program, said the majority of the apprentices are mothers returning to the workforce once their own children are in school. Many have completed just a handful of higher education credits, which mean they need advisers to help them navigate various unfamiliar facets of higher education. They also frequently struggle with the technology in their online courses, including tasks like submitting assignments.

“We needed to be much more hands-on and supportive,” he said. If Missouri State had a “blank check” to spend on apprenticeships, he added, that’s where the money would go.

Improving the Apprenticeship Ecosystem

It’s not enough to bolster programs themselves. For apprenticeships to truly grow, the entire workforce development ecosystem needs to be upgraded.

Currently, that ecosystem is stratified from state to state, with most apprenticeship initiatives happening at the state level. Though advocates laud many state-level policies for promoting the expansion of apprenticeships, siloing is a problem. For one thing, there can be a lack of portability between states—meaning that while apprenticeships ideally lead to a nationally recognized credential, an apprenticeship completed in one state may not automatically be recognized in another, in practice.

It also just means that states are “building the plane” as they fly, rather than working off the same successful blueprints, said Ma of EdTrust.

“The current registration system for apprenticeships is far too complex—there should be one national standard,” she said. “Certainly states can decide if they want flexibility.”

Tracking apprenticeships after completion would be very, very key … to see if they’re in the occupation, in the industry sector, where they’ve landed.”

—Bhavani Arabandi, principal research associate in the work, education and labor division at the Urban Institute

Lindsey Tepe, director of government relations at the American Council on Education, said that she would like to see Labor putting more effort into uplifting and scaling models that have worked in different states.

“Recognition, looking at where models are successful and spotlighting those examples and holding them up as the kind of work that other states can replicate—a lot of that takes capacity [within] the Department of Labor, being able to travel to see kind of what is happening,” she said.

Experts also say that the apprenticeship ecosystem lacks the data to truly understand what works and what should be scaled. Currently, in contrast with traditional higher education, there is no federal requirement to collect data on the outcomes of apprenticeships.

“Tracking apprenticeships after completion would be very, very key … to see if they’re in the occupation, in the industry sector, where they’ve landed. [It] would really tell that story back to employers and employer partners about how important apprenticeship is,” said Bhavani Arabandi, principal research associate in the work, education and labor division at the Urban Institute.

Data is also important because apprenticeship programs—like many colleges and universities—have struggled with completion rates, which vary widely between programs. According to one 2025 study of registered apprenticeships between 2019 and 2022, the completion rate across occupations was just under 59 percent. Collecting more detailed, disaggregated data could help understand which programs are working and which ones aren’t, as well as how different programs are working for different populations. The recent Labor guidance does require the collection and publication of completion data, but not data about job outcomes.

Daniel Kuehn, another principal research associate at the Urban Institute, also noted that there are no national standards at the moment for evaluating apprenticeships. He said the U.S. would benefit from standardized tests at the end of apprenticeship programs, which are the norm in other countries with robust systems.

“We have things like competence assessments by the mentors, and many programs do this well already,” he explained. “But a national system of endpoint assessments” would be ideal.

Other federal initiatives heavily influence apprenticeship programs. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), 2014 legislation that aimed to provide training for un- or underemployed Americans, often funds apprenticeship programs. But WIOA now operates on temporary extensions, and recent reauthorization efforts have stalled in Congress. While lawmakers have generally protected WIOA programs in recent appropriations packages, cuts are a constant threat—including to the small but significant share of apprenticeships that rely on WIOA funding. This threat is amplified by the House appropriations proposal for 2027, which, while proposing that $5 million bump for apprenticeships, includes significant cuts to WIOA for the fiscal year. One analysis of the bill by the National Skills Coalition called this early proposal “counter to the investments more than 230 national, state and local organizations urged Congress to make in workforce and education programs.”

Apprenticeship programs that rely on programs like WIOA also face unique regulatory challenges. Pathways to Paras, for example, struggled to secure funding because WIOA grants are reserved for training in certain high-demand fields, according to Turner. Education wasn’t considered high demand by any of Missouri’s 13 workforce development districts; instead, the program had to say it was training its participants for medical professions because they work with disabled children.

Programs for learners focused on foundational literacy and math skills are also important parts of the ecosystem, as it’s not uncommon for prospective apprentices to need to brush up those skills before they can be successful in an apprenticeship program, Tepe of ACE noted.

She also said that the Trump administration’s policy of canceling grants and funding related to diversity, equity and inclusion could impact apprenticeships.

Sara Weissman/Inside Higher Ed

“If you’re looking for teachers that can serve English-language learners, and you need Spanish-speaking teachers, you might be promoting an apprenticeship model for a specific group of people,” she explained. “Or if you’re looking for workforce shortages in a particular community and one demographic in that community has a really high unemployment rate, like women in a particular community … maybe you’re looking at an apprenticeship model that focuses on recruiting women into STEM fields.”

Tepe continued, “Those hyperlocal needs have gotten caught up in some of this federal attention at defunding, getting rid of anything that talks about diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Where We Are Now

The federal government has made some strides toward upping the number of apprenticeships since Trump set his goal. The Labor guidance published in March included several steps aimed at making programs more flexible for employers, including removing a requirement that some registered apprenticeships must include at least 12 months of on-the-job training, expanding the ability of programs to give credit for prior learning, and establishing a goal of reviewing proposals within 30 days.

In a blog post about the release of the guidance, New America acknowledged the changes were small but nevertheless praised them as “practical adjustments that could make it easier for more programs to get into the game and to track growth and quality over time.”

Separate legislation would, among other things, infuse $150 million into grants for states to develop and scale apprenticeship programs. That bill, called the Streamlining Timely Apprenticeship Registration and Transparency Act, was introduced in April but has yet to move forward.

Despite this piecemeal progress since Trump announced his one-million-apprentice goal, White, of New America, said it’s important to recognize just how far apprenticeships have come in the last decade. The number of active participants in registered apprenticeship programs more than doubled between 2014 and 2024, to nearly 680,000, according to the 2025 analysis of federal data. The annual number of graduates from registered apprenticeship programs reportedly grew by 143 percent over the same decade, from about 46,000 completers to nearly 112,000.

Today, according to the federal apprenticeship dashboard, active apprentices hover at about 700,000.

At the same time, White said, until the federal government realizes the stability afforded by a reauthorization of the NAA, and addresses the lack of consistent funding for apprenticeship programs, apprenticeships in America can’t truly hit their stride.

“More reliable money [and] knowing that those people and processes are going to be there and are not going to be changing dramatically every 36, 48, 72 months would go a long way to creating a system that’s strong and stable,” she said. “And right now, we just don’t have that mentality around investment in the system.”