New technologies, always-shifting customer demands, and evolving industries are rapidly changing the way our economy works, bringing enormous opportunity but a sticky problem: 

Employers need talent to meet increasingly unique business needs but finding that talent is easier said than done. 

Apprenticeships enable companies across the country to bridge this gap by helping workers with high potential, but who are often overlooked, develop skills critical to high-demand industries through on-the-job learning. The result is people are given a chance to reach their full potential based on their aptitudes, while employers hire talent that meets their specific business needs. 

Investing in apprenticeships pays off. Out of every dollar spent on an apprenticeship program, employers get $1.50 in return. 

It’s no surprise apprenticeships are growing at lightning speed. More than 40% of today’s registered apprenticeship programs were created after 2010, according to the learning-to-jobs organization Opportunity@Work. 

Apprenticeships aren’t unique to the trades. Companies across industries are using them as an effective way to find and train new talent — from tech workers to teachers. No matter the industry, people no longer have to choose between learning and work — apprenticeships offer both. 

Reach University transforms the workplace for degree-seeking educators 

Reach University serves working adults seeking to reach their full potential as K-12 educators through a job-embedded apprenticeship degree program. Classified school employees from bus drivers to teaching aides receive on-the-job training to become full-time teachers in the school where they already work.

• Reach University undergraduates earn a living wage from day one until program completion. Tuition is affordable with no student debt.
• Learners move into a qualified teaching position after graduation and securing their teacher certification. This ensures employment for the new teacher while schools get an experienced, specialized, representative, and committed source of local talent to fill their classrooms.
• Reach University is training more than 1,500 educators in 250 rural, low-income and urban K-12 districts across seven states. Reach also supports fellow institutions of higher education, employers, and workforce interests in scaling apprenticeship degrees in the field of education and beyond.

Per Scholas apprenticeships open doors to tech and cybersecurity jobs 

Per Scholas helps tech companies bridge talent gaps by offering apprenticeships to learners from underrepresented communities, allowing them to get the on-the-job experience to break into highly competitive industries.

• Per Scholas has placed 47 apprentices at insurance company Nationwide over the last three years. 
• The company has hired over 80% of those apprentices into full-time positions.
• Per Scholas is working to help fill the 755,000 job openings in the cybersecurity industry by launching a nationwide cyber apprenticeship this year.