Industry, Academia and Government Should Work Together to Close the Skills Gap

Shrinking the growing skills gap will take innovative ideas and clever solutions that maximize partnerships to achieve multiple goals. There are clear overlaps between the goals of American industry, government and academia, and when they intersect and are used effectively, individuals—and society as a whole—can benefit.

To effectively shrink the skills gap, collaborations between industry, academia and government should accomplish three goals:

• Work with students and graduates to develop specific job skills
• Incentivize or encourage employers to provide entry-level, paid opportunities to current students and recent graduates
• Benefit a group or community that is underserved

Here are three examples where this framework starts to come together—even if improvements can be made—and could lay the foundation for a broader, national internship program.

AmeriCorps VISTA

AmeriCorps VISTA is a national program that pairs volunteers with at-need communities. The volunteers gain experience and valuable skills, while the community receives capacity-building resources that allow them to solve large challenges.

It’s not specifically a program for college graduates, and it doesn’t specifically market itself as a career-preparedness program either. Yet—wittingly or not—it achieves both while having a very clear, positive impact on communities across the country. To date, the work of the VISTA program has helped generate more than $178 million to help community groups and nonprofits.

At the conclusion of the program, VISTA provides an education award that can be used toward federal student loans, making it a popular option for newly-minted college graduates. Since the educational award was adopted, more than $17 million has been awarded to participants.

The AmeriCorps VISTA program proves that a national program can provides college graduates with hands-on experience can be beneficial to both the individual, their future employer and the community at large. It’s an all-win scenario. Because the focus of many VISTA programs is on strengthening academic performance and teaching job skills and literacy to underserved populations, local communities benefit from programs and training that are staffed by VISTAs. In turn, the process of participating in and leading the training makes the VISTAs themselves more marketable to future employers at the end of the program. It’s the kind of positive ripple effect that we should seek to replicate. 

State-based apprenticeship programs

A more broad-based, government-backed apprenticeship program exists in many states. One such program in Indiana, Next Level Jobs, recruits and incentivizes employers to provide entry-level, paid apprenticeships that lead to an industry credential. The program also reaches out to students and their families to underscore the importance of education coupled with job skills development.

This works because it allows the state to act as a sort of mediator, ensuring that companies offering apprenticeships have high quality, structured programs. They require participating companies to pay, at a minimum, the minimum wage. And, they must ensure a clear pathway to a credential that is recognized across their respective industry at the completion of the program. Meanwhile, the state helps to foster the pipeline by taking a small role in recruitment with its outreach efforts. And because the government is matchmaking students and employers, colleges benefit by having higher job placement rates upon graduation.

Department of Labor apprenticeships

A framework for an apprenticeship program at the national level does exist, although it functions more as a limited support system for state-based programs. While, for instance, the program supports apprenticeships as a nurse aid or pharmacy technician, there’s no support for more advanced occupations such as a registered nurse or pharmacist. There are apprenticeship opportunities for a construction worker, but not an engineer.

But what if the program offered a fuller range of program support? It’s fair to say human dignity and flourishing can be directly tied to the level of satisfaction and advancement opportunities one’s career offers. A truly effective apprenticeship program would offer a pathway to more advanced professions.

The national program primarily focuses on apprenticeships as an alternative to a more formal college, university or technical school program. Yet, the skills gap can never be truly closed unless these types of programs expand to provide job-based training to students as well. So, while the Department of Labor has demonstrated great success in incentivizing employers to offer these positions, it could expand the program’s scope by working with schools to offer apprenticeships for a wider range of career paths.

Bringing it all together

For their part, academic institutions have programs that promise success if adopted nationally. The University of Cincinnati, for example, has a leading co-op education program that works with area employers to supplement classroom with jobs-based education. Students in the program alternate between semesters in the classroom and semesters as a co-op, essentially apprenticing in the industry related to their major. During the work component, students will also typically take part in an online classroom and discussion to provide an academic component to their semester at work.

Just as much as every individual should be empowered to learn in a way that allows them to flourish, programs should be in place that allow the translation of learning into career experience. With state and federal programs that begin to touch the surface of apprenticeships for certain industries and skill levels, and academic institutions showing success in implementing career-based experiential learning, there’s a solid foundation for an expanded national apprenticeship program. Imagine the economies of scale that can be achieved by collaborating across sectors to achieve efficiencies and share best practices. This kind of thinking is what moves us forward in a world where technology is changing faster than the pace of K-12 and higher education.