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Career education is a vital pipeline to high demand jobs in the workforce. Students from all walks of life benefit from the opportunity to pursue their career education goals and find new employment opportunities. Join Dr. Jason Altmire, President and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU), as he discusses the issues and innovations affecting postsecondary career education. Twice monthly, he and his guests discuss politics, business, and current events impacting education and public policy.
Jason Altmire (00:05)
This is Career Education Report. I'm Jason Altmire. And when I travel around and talk to folks about the podcast, I hear suggestions from people about issues that we should talk about. And I hear universally two things. I I want to hear about AI. People say that all the time. They they they want to learn more about, you know, how to use AI and how it impacts schools. And the other issue is apprenticeships.
Jason Altmire (00:32)
And the reason for that is because they are in the news every single day. President Trump has said that he wants to increase the number of Department of Labor apprenticeships to over a million from the 700,000 that it exists right now. And we have schools across the country among our membership at CQ who
Jason Altmire (00:55)
Do apprenticeships very well and work with employers and and we have folks that are experts in the field, but none more so than Jessica Desmond. She is the regional director of career services and apprenticeships at ECPI University based in Virginia Beach. Jessica, thank you for being with us.
Jessica Desmond (01:16)
Thank you so much for having me here today. I really appreciate this.
Jason Altmire (01:19)
Let's just start when people hear apprenticeships. I think because of it being in the news all the time now, people might have a little bit better understanding than they used to. But I think most people assumed that apprenticeships were done through labor unions at first. And of course, there's a whole separate apparatus at the Department of Labor that has registered apprenticeships. So maybe talk about what does the word apprenticeship mean?
Jessica Desmond (01:48)
At its core, an apprenticeship is a combination of on-the-job learning and then related training that goes along with that hands-on on-the-job training. There are a couple different types of apprenticeships. You'll see that word get thrown around a lot. What we do here mostly at ACPI, and what you're referencing with President Trump's initiative is the official registered apprenticeship with the Department of Labor. So that is kind of think about it, like you think about education.
Jessica Desmond (02:18)
You can have a great program that is not accredited, but most people are going to want to go to a school that is accredited, right? If you're going to university. So the registered app official registered apprenticeship is that higher standard. You know, it's it's an official version of on the job and related technical instruction that can really build a robust workforce pipeline.
Jessica Desmond (02:42)
You can take somebody who has not worked in the field before or maybe even upskill somebody that is on your staff and bring them to that next level, training them on what you want as an employer, and then getting that extra education piece to go along with it.
Jason Altmire (02:58)
And I think folks understand the importance of on-the-job training when you're talking about the skilled trades in particular and having that experience. And registered apprenticeships through the Department of Labor require 2,000 hours of on-the-job training. They also require 144 hours of related technical instruction, which is academic, generally in classroom discussion of their trades.
Jason Altmire (03:27)
How does ECPI handle the breakdown between on-the-job training and classroom work?
Jessica Desmond (03:34)
So, where we come in is the classroom piece. We're an approved related technical instruction provider. So, what we do is we work with employers who have an apprenticeship program or just thinking about setting one up. We can help an employer kind of design that. You know, you've mentioned skilled trades and trade unions. There are actually over 1,000 approved occupations for registered apprenticeships these days. It's not just for the trades anymore. There are great apprenticeships in trades, whether it's AGTAC.
Jessica Desmond (04:03)
Or automotive or welding, but there are also great opportunities for apprenticeships in advanced manufacturing, IT, cybersecurity, software development, logistics. So there's a lot of great opportunities for employers to look at another way of building a workforce pipeline. So we will work with an employer. We can help them design their on-the-job training if they need it. There's a lot of standards out there that we that can be
Jessica Desmond (04:31)
Tailored to every individual company's needs. And then we sit down and figure out what classes are going to go along with the on-the-job training. We can design a curriculum based on the employer's needs from our existing classes. So an employer can choose to send an apprentice through an entire program, whether they want to send them through an associate's degree or a bachelor's degree.
Jessica Desmond (04:57)
They can also say, okay, we want them to take these six classes. This meets the minimum for the related technical instruction hours. And these are the classes that align with what they're going to be learning on the job. The great thing about registered apprenticeships is there is a lot of flexibility with both designing the curriculum and then designing the on-the-job training as well. So it really can fit in a lot of different areas and for a lot of different employers, large and small.
Jason Altmire (05:27)
And each CPI, I think, is is a leader in this. This is your job, right? I mean, this is what you do every day. You're working on these apprenticeships. Why do you feel that apprenticeships are so important for students and also for employers?
Jessica Desmond (05:42)
It's an excellent way for for people who have a desire to work in a field, who want to get some form of education, whether it's the entire degree or just the education piece that goes along with the apprenticeship, it's a great way for them to to explore both areas, to explore the education piece of it, but to get that on the job, paid on-the-job training in their field as an entry into an area that they might not otherwise have the skills to enter.
Jessica Desmond (06:12)
We need a lot of different skilled trades and skilled professionals. We hear a lot of talk about the silver tsunami, right? Like there's a lot of potential retirees coming up in the next several years. How are we going to replace them? Well, a registered apprenticeship is a great way to get that started. Bring in people either for an entry level or to upskill within your organization with structured training. Not every company always has structured training with an end goal of you're going to meet these competencies.
Jessica Desmond (06:42)
If they do, that's a great thing to turn into a registered apprenticeship. But it really gives an employee a precise outline of what they need to learn and what they need to achieve, along with educational piece to really help them, help them get where they want to go and where the employer wants them to go. And as we all know, investing in employees is huge for retention. If they know that you care about them and are interested in them and invest in them, you have employees that want to stay with you.
Jason Altmire (07:11)
And for an employer to be certified for a registered apprenticeship through the US Department of Labor, there's a lot of hoops to jump through. It's not easy. It can be expensive because you do have to pay the apprentice and then you have to figure out tools and uniforms and and all the rest. And you have to put in place the mechanism to host the apprentice. They have to have a mentor on staff. So
Jason Altmire (07:40)
There's probably some productivity loss that the employer is factoring in for the mentor, as well as getting somebody up to speed as an apprentice who may not be able to do the job fully as they will someday be able to do. So how how do you at ECPI work with employers in that transition as the apprentice is just starting out?
Jessica Desmond (08:02)
It's actually a lot easier to create a registered apprenticeship. There are less hoops than a lot of employers think there are. And it's gonna depend on the state that you're in. some states have a national apprenticeship, some have a state registration. In Virginia, it's registered through the state. So there are two pieces of paper you need to fill out to create a registered apprenticeship. One at the beginning and one at the end. And that's it. I would encourage employers to look at
Jessica Desmond (08:31)
What they would spend to hire somebody to get them get them trained to how your company wants things done. You may hire somebody with several years of experience who doesn't understand how your company functions. You still need to train them. They're still going to need to have a mentor. It's very rare that you can just throw somebody into a position and they can perform the job to its highest level on day number one. So looking at turnover.
Jessica Desmond (09:01)
And those sorts of training class is something that I would encourage employers to do while comparing the cost of hiring somebody, either brand new or somebody that's already an employee. You don't necessarily, especially if they're brand new, have to pay them what you would pay somebody who has the experience. You probably already have supervisors that can be the that are going to be the on-the-job mentors if you're hiring a new employee anyway. And to look at
Jessica Desmond (09:30)
what it actually costs you for the investment versus what it might cost if you had three people come and go during a a let's say a two year long apprenticeship. Retraining is a huge cost for a lot of employers.
Jason Altmire (09:44)
That that was going to be my next question about the how long they last. What what is the duration of an apprenticeship? At what point in the student's academic journey does the apprenticeship become available? And is this something that happens after the student graduates or while they're still enrolled at ECPI? How how does all that work?
Jessica Desmond (10:08)
So it actually would happen before somebody was enrolled at ECPI. The employers actually hire the apprentices and then send them to us for the training. Because it can be customized, they may not necessarily follow a traditional degree path here. So it's really for non students. Some can choose to put, we have a couple of employers putting their apprentices through an entire degree program with us. And others that, like I said before, choose to do the customized curriculum.
Jessica Desmond (10:38)
So a lot of times the apprenticeship may be somebody's first introduction to college classes. So we do our best to to work with those students individually and to really help them get used to what it's like to take college classes alongside working, either full time or part-time, depending on what that employer is requiring. So it's before they ever even start with us.
Jason Altmire (11:01)
And it's a hundred and forty four hours.
Jessica Desmond (11:03)
It's a minimum of 144 hours. At most colleges and universities, it's gonna depend on, I believe, accreditation, but every credit counts for 15 hours of those 144 hours. So there's usually, and it's 144 hours per apprenticeship year. So if you do a two-year-long apprenticeship, you need 288 hours. Most classes are gonna be
Jessica Desmond (11:30)
standard classes are gonna be three to four credits, lab classes maybe one credit. So we can help you figure out the minimum number of classes and then if you wanted to have additional training, what that would look like.
Jason Altmire (11:42)
Do you have contact with the student before the employer sends them over to you as related technical instruction? Do you do you have a say in who the students are?
Jessica Desmond (11:53)
No, but they do need to meet our enrollment standards. so they do need to pass our pre-enrollment testing just to make sure that they're going to be successful in the classes. The last thing we want is for somebody to start in an apprenticeship and then that it not be a good match for them. So, but no, it's up to the employers. They do the interviewing, they do the hiring. If
Jessica Desmond (12:17)
somebody that they're considering wants to come in tour ECPI University, wants to talk to us about what that would be like for them as a student, we're always happy to meet with those apprentices.
Jason Altmire (12:27)
been talking generally about we we're using that term employer, you know, kind of to cover everybody, but maybe give an example of a specific program or field that ECPI works with employers on apprenticeships and and talk about how it would work for that particular program.
Jessica Desmond (12:44)
Sure. So mechatronics technician is actually a very popular occupation that we've been working with a few employers on. So what we've done with the employers who have mechatronics technician apprentices is for all of those, we have designed the curriculum for them based on our existing classes. They will contact us and say, hey, we have
Jessica Desmond (13:09)
Like for instance, I know we will have three new apprentices starting in August with one of our employers because they start three new apprentices every year. Once they have made the decision on who they're going to be hiring, they will send me their name and their information and I will get in contact with them and set up a time for them to come in and tour ECPI, do all of the enrollment information, make sure we answer any questions about that and then give them a
Jessica Desmond (13:35)
Copy their schedule and what classes it is that they are going to be taking. Oftentimes employers will have the apprentice start with them, get acclimated, you know, maybe a month or two ahead of time before they start their classes, which I think is a really great way to bring on an apprentice is not to say you have a brand new job and brand new classes all in the same week. It's let them get acclimated to one before they start on the other. But again, it's all very flexible for the employer.
Jessica Desmond (14:05)
At ECPI, we have new term starts every five weeks. So that's one way where we can make it very easy for employers to dictate when they start the apprenticeship, not by, you know, we don't have to wait until a fall semester or a spring semester. They can start somebody in November if they want. If they want a February start, we can do that.
Jason Altmire (14:24)
How long does the apprenticeship last for the worker, the student slash worker? Cause I I I know with let's say autotex or sometimes HVACs, it can be multiple years before you are certified if you go through the apprenticeship process.
Jessica Desmond (14:43)
It varies depending on the occupation. So the minimum is 2,000 hours. So the minimum is one year. And there are several occupations that can be a year long. Two years seems to be pretty common for the mechatronics apprentices. But there are there are other apprenticeships. Plumber, for instance, I believe is four years long. So it does depend on the occupation. And then there are also
Jessica Desmond (15:09)
Different ways to do an apprenticeship. There are time-based apprenticeships and then there are competency-based apprenticeships. So instead of doing a time-based apprenticeship, which is generally going to be about a year anyway, that what they're doing is they're hitting competency marks along the way. You also need to have time for them to finish up their classes as well within the apprenticeship time that you have set.
Jason Altmire (15:31)
Yeah. I think I said HVAC, but it's not as it's not as prevalent there. But for electricians and plumbers for sure, those are multi year apprenticeships. And often for our schools that have those programs, the student will finish the program and then they'll still have a year or two or longer of apprenticeship work to go before they can be certified.
Jessica Desmond (15:57)
Yeah, that could happen depending on some of you know some of those trades where you really need those certifications. Absolutely. You an employer can stack all of the education in the beginning of an apprenticeship. So you need to meet, as you said, 144 hours of related technical instruction per year of the apprenticeship. You can have an apprenticeship that is going to be two years in duration.
Jessica Desmond (16:23)
They just need to complete two hundred and eighty-eight hours within those two years. So they could complete those all in the beginning and then they're just focused on solely the on-the-job learning once they're finished with the classes.
Jason Altmire (16:36)
So the hundred and forty four hours is one year. And if it's a multi year apprentice, then it would be another hundred and forty four hours.
Jessica Desmond (16:42)
Hours.
Jessica Desmond (16:43)
Yes. So it's a hundred and forty four hours per every year of the apprenticeship.
Jason Altmire (16:48)
And I know people will have this thought and ask this question. The employer pays the apprentice, but when the apprentice goes to ECPI or any related technical instruction institution for their educational component of that apprenticeship, who pays for that?
Jessica Desmond (17:06)
That is up to the employer. All of the ones that we have been working with pay for the education. They pay for the training. We usually put our students through or the apprentices through one class at a time. As I mentioned, we have five week terms. So they will complete about the same amount of classes as at a traditional school would if they were going halftime. Again, that's up to the employer. The employer may request that the apprentice
Jessica Desmond (17:34)
pay for some or all of the educational piece, but I think most employers end up being the ones to do the funding.
Jason Altmire (17:42)
And how would a school, ECPI in this case, but just more generally a school looking to get into this, how would they find the employers to partner with? How have you at ECPI been so successful in finding these employers that have the relationship with the university to send students and they they're willing to continue that partnership?
Jessica Desmond (18:06)
Lots of cold calling, brush off your sales hat, I would say. But we started out with employers that we've had a good relationship with already, that were hiring graduates that were coming to our career fairs, that potentially had an interest in doing an apprenticeship. And we have lots of conversations with employers where it turns out not to be the best fit for them or not the right fit for them at this time. They'd rather to continue only hiring graduates. And that's that's fine.
Jessica Desmond (18:35)
But there are multiple ways to work with most universities and colleges, I would say. And this is just another way to do so. So we started out contacting employers that we had those relationships with, explained what an apprenticeship was. If they didn't already know, or if they did, said, Hey, Ken, you know, take an occupation and let's look at what that may look like. Let's build it out for you. And that way you can discuss it and see if this is a viable option for you. And then
Jessica Desmond (19:02)
Yeah, just lots of calling and introducing ourselves to other businesses in the area.
Jason Altmire (19:07)
So that kind of gets to what I wanted to have as the last question, which is what advice would you have for other schools? Because, you know, I I see across the country there are other schools that do this well, but there are many more that would like to get into apprenticeships, but just don't know how to start. And ECPI as one of the leaders, I I think you're well positioned to offer advice to schools about how to.
Jason Altmire (19:34)
Just get it off the ground if you want to be involved in apprenticeships.
Jessica Desmond (19:38)
So I would say take it one employer at a time. If you look, it's just like anything else where they tell you to ta eat the elephant one bite at a time. If you've already become approved as a related technical instruction provider, which is the first step, if you have not done that, you may want to go to apprenticeship.gov, which is the Department of Labor website about apprenticeships. And on there you can find out if your state is a state run apprenticeship or a federally run apprenticeship.
Jessica Desmond (20:06)
And there will be contacts listed right there on who you can contact to find out how to become approved as a related technical instruction provider. After that, I would suggest getting your ducks in a row. Once you've been approved, is coming up with a list of companies that either you already have relationships with or want to contact in the occupations for which you've been approved, and just start making phone calls and sending out emails, maybe with a brief description of what registered apprenticeship is.
Jessica Desmond (20:36)
And just continuing to provide the information and the service. We view it as another service that we're providing the business community with which we're heavily involved and be excited about it, be passionate about it. It's really something amazing for both employers and potential apprentices as a way for them to move into working in this area that they want to work in. So if you're excited about it, how can the employers not be excited about it with you?
Jason Altmire (21:04)
And I would just add that you know the apprenticeships at the national level have been woefully underfunded for forever, as for as long as the program has existed. That is starting to no longer be the case. President Trump has put a high priority on this and has almost doubled the budget at the department covering apprenticeships. People who are thought leaders across the country always.
Jason Altmire (21:30)
Number one for workforce development filling that skills gap, the number one suggestion is always expand apprenticeships because at on the job training is so important. So I would agree with what you're saying is if you are a school out there or an employer thinking about getting into it, this is the time to do it because the funding is going to be there, the attention is there, and and schools are are very much interested in participating.
Jason Altmire (21:57)
Is there anything else that Jessica that you would want folks to know?
Jessica Desmond (22:02)
Just to keep your options open, whether you're a school or whether you're an employer, is just remember that there can be an apprenticeship in pretty much any field. Again, you can find the the total list of occupations on the Department of Labor website. However, there's over a thousand. So you can search for what you want, but I would say keep your options open and be flexible for both employers and universities on how you work with one another.
Jason Altmire (22:27)
Our guest today has been Jessica Desman. She is the Regional Director of Career Services and Apprenticeships at ECPI. Jessica, thank you for being with us.
Jessica Desmond (22:37)
Thank you so much.
Jason Altmire (22:42)
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Career Education Report. Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For more information, visit our website at career.org and follow us on Twitter @CECUED. That's at C E C U E D. Thank you for listening.