Absence of conflict of interest
Citation
Highlights
- The study’s objective was to examine the implementation of Wisconsin’s Youth Apprenticeship Program which provides high school students across the state with on-the-job learning experience and related technical instruction in 13 career concentrations.
- The study authors conducted an implementation evaluation using secondary data sources and interviews with program administrators.
- The study found that the program succeeded in engaging a high number of students and employers in apprenticeships at a low cost to the state which increased students high school and post-secondary success.
- The study features a limited number of secondary sources and interview participants, which restricts how widely the findings can be applied in the state and nation.
- There was no companion impact study.
Intervention Examined
Wisconsin’s Youth Apprenticeship (YA) Program
Features of the Intervention
- Type of organization: School districts
- Location/setting: Multi-site in Wisconsin
- Population served and scale: High school students; 8,358 apprentices
- Industry focus: Agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting; Construction; Arts, entertainment, and recreation; Management of companies and enterprises; Educational services; Finance and insurance; Health care and social assistance; Accommodation and food service; Information; Manufacturing; Other services; Professional, scientific; and technical services; Transportation and warehousing; Public administration
- Intervention activities: Youth apprenticeship
- Organizational partnerships: Employers; Community-based organizations; Community colleges; Local workforce investment boards
- Cost: $1,100 per youth apprentice
- Fidelity: Not included
Wisconsin's Youth Apprenticeship Program was launched in 1991. The program has received strong support over the years, but it remains relatively small. Over the first 17 years of the program, about 16,000 students were served with an annual allocation of $2.2 million in 2008. By 2018, the allocation had risen to almost $4 million. By 2023, there were over 8,000 apprentices and almost 6,000 employer partners.
The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development operates and funds the program. It targets high school students, especially those in their junior or senior years. Some programs might also reach out to younger students as appropriate. The primary service providers are high schools and school districts, chambers of commerce, local employers, local workforce development boards, community-based organizations, and technical or community colleges. The state creates universal standards for each youth apprenticeship program career concentration, so the experience is similar across the state.
Annually, the Department of Workforce Development requests proposals from local consortia to develop and oversee youth apprenticeships. The Department disburses funding to each consortium based on their predicted number of enrolled apprentices. In 2023, the program operated across 39 consortia in the state, including Racine, North Central Wisconsin, Northwest Wisconsin, Manitowoc County, Southwest Wisconsin, La Crosse, and Milwaukee, among others. Each consortium is required to conduct employer and apprentice recruitment for their program. At a minimum, students must participate in 450 hours of on-the-job learning and 180 hours of classroom instruction. The program is supported by a full-time regional coordinator and school-based coordinators who support the program’s implementation in addition to their standard duties.
Features of the Study
The authors conducted document reviews and interviews with key informants. The interviews were with the director of the state apprenticeship office, the youth apprenticeship section chief, the youth apprenticeship coordinator at 3 out of 39 consortiums, 1 employer partner, and 2 members of the same educational partner organization. Two of the interviewees were women. The authors do not provide additional information about interviewees or specify how interviewees were selected.
The study does not collect data from participants directly, aside from a count of total youth apprentices in the state and the number of youth apprentices per industry. Of the 8,000 apprentices referenced in the study, almost half were women. Manufacturing apprentices made up the plurality of youth apprentices as of 2023. The authors provide direct quotations from interviews and directly cite source materials including counts of apprentices and apprentices per occupation. When referring to external research, authors provide a brief synopsis of findings rather than report their own analysis of the source material.
Findings
Intervention Activities/Services
- The study found that Wisconsin has succeeded in expanding their youth apprenticeship system over the years at a modest cost to the state by emphasizing local control and local administration of individual programs.
- The program successfully provided students, including a large portion of female students, with extra work experience and helped improve their chances of graduating from high school through the youth apprenticeship program.
- Youth apprentices were found to have higher earnings, lower rates of school absences, and more concrete long-term educational and career plans
- Employers reported a high degree of satisfaction with their involvement in the program.
Implementation Challenges and Solutions
- Many apprentices lacked access to technical training during high school, and the expense of community college courses posed financial difficulties. This limited the ability of consortia to scale up their programs in some cases.
- The study found that African American students were underrepresented in the youth apprenticeship system compared to their portion of the state’s youth population.
- The funding model relied on an estimated number of apprentices, which caused issues when programs accepted more apprentices than expected, placing an additional strain on their resources.
- Apprentices under the age of 18 sometimes had challenges being placed in jobs because of legal or safety rules. Also, there were not enough job openings to match the number of apprentices looking for work.
- The state reallocated its funding at the end of the fiscal year to address funding challenges. This adjustment was based on whether the number of apprentices was lower or higher than what was expected in the consortium's grant application.
- The study found additional funding could help expand the youth apprenticeship program in cities, include more apprentices from racial and ethnically diverse groups, fund more research into the program, and offset dual enrollment costs currently burdening implementing organizations.
Cost
- The study found that the state disbursed $1,100 per apprentice in the program.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
This study has a limitation due to the narrow scope of source material, which lacks detailed information about the experiences and views of participants. Additionally, the interviews with administrators focus on a small number of youth apprenticeship consortia, which restricts how widely the research findings can be applied across the state or nation.