Apprenticeships combine paid on-the-job training with classroom time. Increasing their use has bipartisan support and was a rare subject of agreement between the presidential candidates in the election just ended. Apprenticeships have also benefited from growing public skepticism about the need for college: Only one in four adults now says having a four-year degree is extremely or very important to get a good job, the Pew Research Center finds, and nearly two-thirds of 14- to 18-year-olds say their ideal educations would involve learning skills on the job, as in apprenticeships, according to a survey by the ECMC Group. (ECMC Group is affiliated with the ECMC Foundation, one of many funders of The Hechinger Report.)
