PBS NewsHour: Colorado apprenticeship program turns the factory floor into a classroom

August 29, 2017

Some high school students in Colorado may get prime jobs even before they get their diplomas. That’s because CareerWise, the nation’s first statewide youth apprenticeship program, links students to industries and addresses manufacturers’ demand for skills, while offering employment, academic credit and support for college. Hari Sreenivasan reports as part of our Rethinking College series.

… Gail Mellow is the president of New York’s LaGuardia Community College, which also offers programs that link high school students to middle skills. While enthusiastic about Colorado’s new program, Mellow cautions that Europe and the United States have very different social structures.

GAIL MELLOW: The challenge is that if we model those steps exactly at what happens in Switzerland, we don’t have the robust safety net. So, our robust health benefits, the living wages, those are often not part of American businesses.