WEBVTT - Apprenticeships: Earn AND Learn Simultaneously w/ Ryan Craig #827 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.600 Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt. 0:00:03.720 --> 0:00:07.200 Today we're talking about apprenticeships, how to earn and learn 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:09.479 simultaneously with Ryan Craig. 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:31.920 Yeah, so the notion that an individual could earn a 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.519 living while simultaneously learning how to do their job is 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:38.400 such a foreign concept, you know, Like, that is not 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:41.280 how we do things here in America. It takes money 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:43.599 to make money, baby, That's how we do it here. 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:46.080 You've got to go to the most expensive college. You 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:48.880 got to take on boat loads of student loans, saddle 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:51.320 yourself with years of debt if you want a decent job. 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:54.440 These days, some of the most man selective universities, they're 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.520 quickly approaching the one hundred thousand dollar mark for a 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:01.520 single year of college. And while we are fans of 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:04.399 investing in yourself, like, it just definitely looks like we're 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:08.120 approaching a tipping point. Nothing literally has risen faster than 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:11.679 the price of college over the decades. But what if 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:15.240 there was another way? And we're joined by education and 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:20.040 workforce expert Ryan Craig, who says that there are alternatives. 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:25.000 His book Apprentice Nation explores how a modern apprenticeship system, 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:28.120 how that will allow students and job seekers to jumpstart 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:32.000 their careers by learning while they earn, leading to greater 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:35.360 workforce diversity and geographical mobility. So Ryan, thank you for 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:37.319 joining us today on the podcast to talk about this. 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:39.920 Great to be here. Matt in Jill appreciate it. And 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:42.400 you know, to your point about one hundred thousand dollars college. 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:44.560 The New York Times just wrote a piece a couple 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:49.160 of weeks ago calculating that Vanderbilt University is the first 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:52.720 where if you add the room board and fees to tuition, 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:55.200 and then you add in the cost of a couple 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:58.840 flights a year to and from school, you're over one 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:00.680 hundred grand built. 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:00.880 There, you go. 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:03.320 Sounds cheap to me, Ryan On, I mean, what's the 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:05.200 big fuss come on a bit of money? 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:05.600 Right? 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:08.280 Is it grows on trees? 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:10.079 I just pick it out in my backyard. The first 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:11.760 question we ask everybody who comes on the show, by 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:13.600 the way, Ryan, is what their craft beer equivalent is. 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:15.639 Matt and I spend more money than some people think 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:17.640 it's sane on craft beer. But we're day, we're doing 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:19.920 the right stuff at the same time, saving and investing 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:21.919 for a future. So what's that for you, what's your 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:23.960 kind of equivalent splurge. 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:26.480 Yeah, I'm afraid it's not as going to be as 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:31.160 interesting as craft beer. I'm a runner, and I don't 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.400 have that much time between my work and my my 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:39.840 writing and my policy nonprofit work. So I like to 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:43.639 when i'm running be able to catch up on TV 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:46.240 shows that I've missed. And so even though I live 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:50.200 in LA I run in my basement on a treadmill, 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:54.360 and I have the top of the line treadmill. 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:56.520 That I have splurged. 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.720 So most people will have like a consumer couple of 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:03.440 thousand dollars maybe treadmill mind costs a lot more than that, 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:05.400 but I use it and I love it. 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:08.120 So okay, so you're running in you're catching up on entertainment. 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:09.919 Does it have some sort of like twelve inch screen, 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:12.160 like this beautiful display that's automatically. 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:15.160 Desc beautiful screen. Yeah, big beautiful screen right in front 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:17.160 of it. Surround sound, it's great. 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:20.040 Oh treadmill? What's the round sound? Baby? Okay, So what's 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:22.520 the deal by Dolby? You know, I see these treadmills 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:24.480 that are curved? Is yours like that? 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:24.840 Like? 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:25.680 What are those treadmills? 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:28.480 All? It's not I don't understand that either. That looks looks. 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:31.640 Painful, Okay, you and me both. I don't know what 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:34.200 those what those are for, but let's dive into it. 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:38.480 You wrote a book about faster, cheaper alternatives to college 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:41.760 before your current book about apprenticeships. But there is obviously 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.760 a clear thread between the two. Why is this area, 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:47.240 why is this domain so important to you? 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:51.400 Well, I mean I've made my career in higher education. 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:55.360 My first job twenty five years ago was at Columbia University, 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:56.760 which has had. 0:03:56.680 --> 0:04:01.720 A difficult, difficult month. I don't say. 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:03.880 They've been in the news. 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:09.760 Since then, I have helped build universities, worked at universities, 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:13.800 worked with universities, build companies that partner with universities, and 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:17.600 have a love for higher education. The challenge that we have, 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:22.800 of course, is that we're facing a three part crisis 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:25.200 in higher education, and that has nothing to do with 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:29.760 the protests. The first is a crisis of completion. So 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:33.599 only about half of students who matriculate into a college 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:37.520 or university actually complete the programm or degree that they 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:42.200 set out to complete. So that's a problem. We have 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:45.840 the highest rate of matriculation among developed countries, so we 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:49.120 have great access, but we have the lowest rate of completion, 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:51.880 and some community colleges it can be as low as 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:56.839 fifteen percent. Then we have a crisis of affordability. So 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:01.559 the one hundred thousand dollars degree is one hundred thousand 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:05.719 dollars a year degree is nigh. But you know, beyond that, 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:08.360 the average student who takes on student loans, which is 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:11.800 about seventy percent of all students, if they complete and graduate, 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:15.600 they're graduating now with about fifty thousand dollars in student 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:19.600 loan debt. And no other country has that kind of issue, 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:22.880 settling its young people with that much debt as they're 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:28.360 trying to launch their careers. And then third is employability. 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:31.839 You know, if every student graduated into a sixty thousand 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:34.800 dollars a year job, they'd be able to support that 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:39.200 kind of student loan debt. But Strata just put out 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:43.080 a new study last month showing that fifty two percent 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:47.320 of recent grads are underemployed in their first jobs, which 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:50.200 means that they probably could have gotten those jobs without 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:55.680 the investment of time and money in those degrees. And 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:57.760 we know that if you're underemployed in your first job. 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:00.680 Two thirds of the time you're underemployed for five years later. 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:03.120 Half the time you're under employed a decade later. Right, 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:07.480 careers are path dependent, and so something is not working. 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:12.279 And I think that the fundamental change is that the 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:17.160 economy has been transformed. Digital transformation has changed the economy, 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.280 changed the jobs we all do. We're all using technology 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:22.680 in our jobs. Many of us are actually working in. 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:24.120 The tech sector. 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:27.800 But if you look at the programs of study, if 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:29.440 you go and you go back to your alma mater 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.560 and you look around, it looks almost identical to the 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:36.120 way you know. Yes, maybe students have phones, and maybe 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:40.200 there's a data science program, but by and large, same program, 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:44.120 same departmental structure as when you attended. 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:47.680 And something is not working. 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.560 And what's not working is that employers are having an 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:55.000 increasingly hard time finding the skills that they're looking for. 0:06:55.040 --> 0:07:00.479 They're looking for discrete combinations of digital skills, business skills, knowledge, 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:04.039 role knowledge, and colleges and universities, I think are doing 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:05.839 as good a job as they've ever done on the 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:10.120 sort of core cognitive skills, critical thinking, problem solving, communication skills, 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:13.520 but they're not doing anything around the specific skills that 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:17.560 employees are looking for in addition, and that's contributing to 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:22.320 the underemployment. And those skills are actually harder to learn 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:25.040 in a classroom than they are by doing so that's 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:29.280 maybe the bridge to sort of earning and learning. 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:32.960 Is part of the problem that the workplace is the 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:35.960 nail and college has been seen as the hammer. It's 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:39.120 like we've essentially made it a one size fits all solution, 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:42.120 even though in actuality it's not working out that way, 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:45.600 and we've pushed everybody in that direction. And yet, like 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:48.560 in your last book that you released in twenty eighteen, 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.640 you talk about other solutions that are superior to the 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:54.280 current for your meth that's even before we get into 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:58.120 like in depth talk about apprenticeships, Like what are some 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:00.280 of those other routes that are superior that we're just 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:01.440 like neglecting completely. 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.440 Yeah, look, I mean, you know, we coined the term 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:08.200 fast last mile training to reflect sort of what employers 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.920 are looking for, these digital skills, business skills, business knowledge 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:16.640 that colleges aren't aren't providing. And there's a whole industry 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:22.720 now of alternative boot camps and online credentials and industry 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:28.120 recognized certificate programs that may take you as little as 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:32.959 a few months, and you have a credential that an 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.120 employer will value and hire you on without regard to 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:40.480 whether you have a degree in many cases, So the challenge, 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:42.720 and as you're right, my last book was sort of 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:46.720 a guided tour of that emerging last mile training landscape, 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:49.760 which is the direct result of those three crises that 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:54.559 we're seeing in higher education, particularly around employability. But those, 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:57.360 you know, those programs are still what I would call 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:00.480 train and prey programs, which is to say, there's no 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:03.920 guarantee of a job right you graduate from you know, 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:08.439 the most well intentioned coding boot camp. You know, employer 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.559 is not going to know what that program is, necessarily 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:14.520 what skills you've gained, and it's certainly not going to 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:18.640 close what is emerging as perhaps the biggest problem facing 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:22.400 new grads, which is this experience gap where employers are 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:28.600 increasingly explicitly or implicitly demanding six, twelve, eighteen, twenty four 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:33.440 months of real, relevant, paid, sometimes even full time work 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.000 experience and jobs that used to be entry level jobs. 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:43.040 And AI is going to completely turn that experience gap 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:47.640 into a chasm because the bargain that employers have always 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:49.720 made with their entry level workers is you don't need 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.440 skills or experience, you just need kind of you know, 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:56.600 the potential and the interest. You'll, yeah, exactly, and you'll 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.000 do you know, kind of some grunt work menial work 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:02.160 while you learn the ropes and become productive well with AI. 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:05.360 That grunt work and media work is going to go away. 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:08.840 You know, no investment banking analyst is going to be 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:13.640 spending you know, fifty hours a week building PowerPoint. 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:14.920 Slides for decks. 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:17.280 They're going to be due to spending an hour on 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:20.280 that using AI, and they'll be expected to spend the 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:24.800 other forty nine hours doing higher value client work, product work, 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:27.360 you name it. But the problem is that that higher 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:29.920 value work is not going to be possible without experience. 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:30.640 And so you're going to. 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:35.520 See employers demanding years of work experience for jobs that 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:37.600 used to be entry level jobs. And it's really going 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:41.360 to pull the ladder up and away from young Americans 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:45.880 who've gone down this tuition, tuition based, debt based career 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:50.640 launch pathway, which is really unfortunate because among all developed countries, 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:56.000 we're first on tuition based, debt based career launch infrastructure. 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.120 We're last on earn and learn infrastructure. 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:00.360 And that's the problem with those sort of those smile 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:04.120 training boot camps or online certifications. It seems like what 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:06.640 you're saying too, is that the employers they don't necessarily 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:09.000 trust that because they've got no idea, they don't have 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:10.839 a whole lot of experience. They're as opposed to if 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:13.720 they were on site, if they had the ability to 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:16.000 learn firsthand what it is that they needed to do. 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:19.640 And that kind of leads us to apprenticeships. And this 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:21.880 might be kind of a weird question, but like, how 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:24.760 do you define an apprenticeship, right, because I think you've 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:28.320 said that it's not workforce training, like you are actually 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:30.839 earning some money. So can you kind of drill down 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.040 on that and explain to listeners kind of what that 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:34.200 apprenticeship can look like. 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:34.800 Yeah. 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:38.000 Yeah, an apprenticeship quite simply is a full time job 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:41.520 that has a couple of distinct characteristics. One is that 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:45.400 you're not expected to have the skills or experience coming in. 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:49.160 Two is that you're being provided with formal and informal 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.840 training as part of that part of that job. So 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:55.080 the formal training is actually you're going to be in 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:57.959 a classroom for the equivalent of kind of a day, 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:00.640 a week or perhaps as long as a year or 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.640 sometimes two years, and you're actually learning everything you need 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:08.160 to know about the job. And then there's an informal 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:12.040 on the job training component to it, where your supervisors, 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:15.079 your managers who you're working for, are supposed to sort 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:18.520 of continue to train you on the on the job. 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.600 And then after a period of time one year, two years, 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.520 three years, you're just going to transition to become a 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:26.720 regular employee. You don't have to apply for a new job. 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.280 You just sort of continue. You're no longer an apprentice. 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:33.120 You're you know, a regular, a regular employee. So that's apprenticeship, 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:36.080 if you know, there's confusion around it because there are 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:40.680 other terms like pre apprenticeship, youth apprenticeship, those are those 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:42.880 are if you're not a full time employee, you're not 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:45.000 an apprentice, period end of story. 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:48.960 Because internships, some people confuse internships and apprenticeship sometimes too right, 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.800 it's it's like potential onboarding, but you're also not a 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:55.280 full time employee. You're yeah, cut leg go at any 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:56.760 time after the well, yeah. 0:12:56.600 --> 0:12:57.360 An internship. 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:01.200 Internship is like apprenticeship turned on its head because you're 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:05.640 an apprentice is a full time worker who's doing training 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:08.520 as part of his or her job. An intern is 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:13.600 someone who's engaged enrolled in an educational typically post secondary 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:20.200 program college program where during the program, whether it's over 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:23.760 the summer or during during a term, they're engaging and 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:27.760 usually part time, sometimes full time work over the summer, 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:33.520 sometimes paid too often unpaid, which makes it kind of inequitable. 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:37.400 But you return then from it's time limited and then 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:39.960 you return to you know, finishing your program of study, 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:45.800 so you know, a thumbnail apprenticeship. Apprentices are workers who 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:49.400 have training built in in terms or students who are 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:51.559 doing a sort of temporary work experience. 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:54.680 So tell me what's the benefit for the employer, because 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:57.800 I'm thinking about this from the perspective of somebody who 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:02.280 employees people, spends money for hopefully productive labor. And you 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:04.680 hire somebody and not only are you paying them a 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:06.880 salary you know, probably not commensurate to the people obviously 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:08.839 that have been around for five ten years or something 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:11.360 like that and are highly productive. But I'm having to 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:14.560 pay the salary of someone and teach them at the 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:20.040 same time. That requires like a commitment, dedication. What sort 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:22.960 of commitment are they getting in return? So what are 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:26.880 the stakes like for these employers who participate in apprenticeship programs. 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:28.560 Well, depending on how you define it, too high or 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:33.040 too low, meaning that you know your average employer is 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:33.960 not going to do it. 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:34.920 It doesn't make sense. 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:38.480 And that's kind of the secret of apprenticeship is that 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:42.040 where apprenticeships thrive around the world, whether it be in 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:46.680 you know, Germany, Austria, or Switzerland, or here in the 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:50.400 US in the building trades. They're not thriving because employers 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:53.720 in those countries or sectors are more benevolent or more 0:14:53.960 --> 0:15:00.520 far sighted. They're thriving because there are intermediaries who are 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:03.280 doing the work of setting up and running these programs. 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:06.880 And these intermediaries are doing so because they're either required 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:10.440 to do so by law or they're incentivized to do 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:15.000 so by the government. And so in Germany, the reason 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:18.600 that you know, the German apprenticeship program is a system 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:20.320 is the kind of the gold standard is that you 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:25.360 have these massive, powerful chambers of commerce across every industry 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:28.400 that are required by law to work with unions and 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:31.600 run these programs for the benefit of employers, and they're 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:33.760 funded to do so you know, I kind of laugh 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:37.640 every time I see some report of a state junket 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:39.760 going over to Germany to drink the reaseling and eat 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:44.360 the schnitzel and look at their apprenticeship programs. It's not opposite. 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:48.000 We don't have that infrastructure. We can't, we can't, we 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:52.160 can't do that. But what's interesting is that the UK 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:56.520 and Australia and France thirty years ago looked a lot 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:58.920 like the US in terms of having a very small 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:04.440 apprenticeship system, like almost all in the building trades, like 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:08.320 we do today. And today in those countries there are 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:10.720 eight to ten x where we are in terms of 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:15.480 apprentices as a percentage of the workforce. And it's very 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:19.440 common in those countries to launch careers in finance, tech, 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:24.000 healthcare as an apprentice. And how did that happen. It's 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.760 because governments recognize that employers don't do it themselves. Certainly, 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:30.880 colleges and universities don't set up and run these programs 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:34.760 for the benefit of employers. It requires a concerted effort 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:39.720 to incentivize and establish a robust ecosystem of intermediaries who 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:42.520 are doing this work of setting up and running programs 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:46.160 for the benefit of employers. And so now in the 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:50.360 UK you have this ecosystem of twelve hundred apprenticeship service providers. 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:55.360 These are nonprofit organizations and more often former staffing companies 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:59.240 HR services companies that have launched businesses as apprenticeship service 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:03.520 providers because there's government funding and incentive to do so, 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:06.879 and so they're now running around the country knocking on 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:09.520 doors of every employer offering to set up and run 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.080 apprenticeship programs across every sector. 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:14.040 So you won't find a. 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:15.919 Larger mid sized employer in the UK that hasn't been 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:19.400 approached by a half dozen of these apprenticeship service providers. 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.480 It's the opposite here. You know, you won't find any 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:25.840 employer who's been approached by any you know company or 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:28.679 organization offering to set up and help them run an 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:33.720 apprenticeship program. If you know, the idea occurs to you know, 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:36.960 an HR leader or a CEO at an American company, 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:39.679 the assumption is, well, we'd have to do it ourselves, 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:43.000 and for exactly the reasons you stated. The math doesn't 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:46.440 work because you're you're not only paying for the training, 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:49.879 but you're paying and you're hiring and paying an unproductive 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:52.240 worker a worker who's not going to be productive for 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:55.320 an extended period of time, So it doesn't work without 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:56.720 smart policy. 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:59.120 Help help us get get an understanding of I guess 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:01.800 what apprenticeships can because you mentioned some of the different 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:05.320 building trades in Europe. But you also point out though 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:07.920 in your book, that apprenticeships they're not just for blue 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:10.800 collar jobs as well, right, Like, can you talk about 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.800 I guess the vast variety of what apprenticeships and what 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:18.280 different industries that you can find those types of opportunities in. 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:22.680 Well, I mean, apprenticeships are you know, sort of informal 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:26.480 apprenticeships exist everywhere, right, and you know, think about investment, 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:30.040 banking or consulting. You know there's sort of those top 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:34.240 firms or hiring candidates in with potential but without the 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:36.520 skills or experience, and they're they're delivering that to them. 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:39.679 Think about Hollywood and the classic you know, going to 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.800 work in the CIA mail room for example. That's you know, 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:48.640 kind of an informal apprenticeship apprenticeship model. But broadly speaking, 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:54.080 apprenticeships work in the trades because they're really good ways 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:58.520 to learn how to use tools, right, And they work 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:00.919 well in the trades because even though you may not 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:04.160 know what you're doing on day one, you can still 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.080 kind of hold the tools and you know, help right, 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:09.399 even if you don't know what you're what you're doing. 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:13.679 With the digitization of the economy, everyone needs to know 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:16.119 how to use tools. Now, those may not be tools 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:19.840 that you know require you know, muscle and dexterity. They 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:23.959 may be tools that require understanding how to use certain 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:29.480 software platforms. And that's where we're seeing huge growth in 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:36.000 apprenticeship programs and apprenticeship models in areas like software development, 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:45.160 data analytics, healthcare I, cybersecurity, discrete tech ecosystems like Salesforce, workday, SAP. 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:48.639 You know, these are all areas where you know, higher 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:54.040 education is not you know, preparing and delivering work ready 0:19:54.720 --> 0:20:00.680 graduates and apprenticeships are really useful for you know, there's 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:05.119 seven hundred thousand unfilled cybersecurity jobs in the country right now, 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:09.920 and the experience gap in cybersecurity has just exploded over 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:12.760 the last five years. It used to be that a 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:17.720 college grad with some technical acumen could access a job 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:20.399 as a Tier one analyst and a security operations center. 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:24.840 But today, because of automation, tier one analysts have basically 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:28.640 gone away, and the entry level position is what used 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:32.000 to be a Tier two analyst, which demands a CISSP certification, 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:36.760 which is three to five years work experience. So how 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:41.200 do you break into cyber. Well, we need apprenticeship infrastructure 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:45.360 in that space. We need incentives for companies and more 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:48.560 likely intermediaries to hire you know, tens or hundreds of 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:52.760 thousands of young Americans, deliver them the skills are experience, 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:54.639 and kind of serve them up on a silver platter 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:58.520 to the ultimate employers who'll be glad to take them 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.880 and put them into those now level you know, tier 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:02.919 two positions. 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:06.080 Yeah, it also seems like a just a more optimized, 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:12.000 efficient approach, hopefully allowing a lot of individuals to forsake 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:16.480 some of the diletorious effects of having significant amounts of 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.359 student loan debt, especially with the stat you cited something 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:22.880 like forty percent of which those people who even get 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:26.359 the degree find themselves underemployed, not using that degree. So 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:28.879 it's a really really expensive item that you hang on 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:30.680 the wall that's not really paying off in the way 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:31.200 that you hoped. 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:32.880 Ryan, we've got more than we want to talk about. 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:36.160 We specifically want to talk about the college verse apprenticeship, 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:39.160 and like are these mutually exclusive? Get to some questions 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:49.560 with you on that. Right after this, we are back. 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:52.960 For the break, still talking with Ryan Craig about apprenticeships, 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:57.000 and right, like, can you basically just share with us 0:21:57.040 --> 0:22:01.600 like an elevator pitch for an apprenticeship versus going to college, 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:03.680 because yeah, I think there are a lot of folks 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:05.440 who might be you know, they're kind of they're hearing 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:09.320 you extol the benefits and how that could get you 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:11.159 placed in a position where you're going to earn a 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:14.280 lot of money while simultaneously not incurring a whole lot 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:17.720 of student loans. But yeah, help somebody to do a 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:20.200 paradigm shift're used to it. Yeah yeah, yeah, but yeah, 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:21.800 so somebody who might be grappling with us, I would 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:24.360 love to hear the elevator pitch for the apprenticeship. 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:24.840 Yeah. 0:22:24.960 --> 0:22:27.320 The elevator pitch is that obviously college for all isn't 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:31.960 working for all right now, given the affordability and employability 0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:36.320 challenges that we're seeing, an apprenticeship model or an earn 0:22:36.359 --> 0:22:41.000 a learned model is a more equitable model right where 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:43.200 we're not asking students to take a financial risk we're 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:45.480 not asking to take an employment risk because you're hired 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.240