Youth Apprenticeship in America

Accord­ing to the 2025 Kids COUNT^® Data Book, 6% of Mary­land teenagers are not in school or work­ing. This seg­ment of the pop­u­la­tion — also known as oppor­tu­ni­ty youth or dis­con­nect­ed youth — faces an uncer­tain and often dif­fi­cult path to jobs that pay a liv­ing wage. How­ev­er, appren­tice­ship pro­grams are an increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar option for young peo­ple who want to start their careers and build com­pet­i­tive job skills.

Below, Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion senior asso­ciate Adenike Akin­ti­lo dis­cuss­es the Bal­ti­more Civic Site’s youth appren­tice­ship strat­e­gy and the val­ue of appren­tice­ship pro­grams for Baltimore’s young workers.

Q: What can you tell us about the Bal­ti­more Civic Site’s youth appren­tice­ship approach?

Akin­ti­lo: The Bal­ti­more Civic Site’s sup­port of appren­tice­ship is part of a strat­e­gy with two goals: reduce the num­ber of oppor­tu­ni­ty youth in Bal­ti­more and increase eco­nom­ic mobil­i­ty for young peo­ple between the ages of 18–24.

We know that appren­tice­ships are an acces­si­ble career path­way that com­bines class­room learn­ing with paid, on-the-job train­ing. We also know that — for cur­rent high school stu­dents and recent grad­u­ates — these appren­tice­ships pro­vide crit­i­cal tech­ni­cal skills train­ing, pro­fes­sion­al men­tor­ship and a foot in the door for high-wage, in-demand occu­pa­tions.

Read the Governor’s Appren­tice­ship Pledge

Casey’s invest­ments align close­ly with the goals of the Blue­print for Maryland’s Future, which requires that 45% of Mary­land high school grad­u­ates earn an indus­try-rec­og­nized cre­den­tial or com­plete the high school com­po­nent of a reg­is­tered appren­tice­ship pro­gram by 2031.

Q: What is unique about Casey’s sup­port of appren­tice­ship in Baltimore?

Akin­ti­lo: While appren­tice­ships are wide­ly adopt­ed in coun­tries such as Switzer­land and Ger­many, they have his­tor­i­cal­ly been dif­fi­cult to scale in the Unit­ed States. Employ­ers often cite the com­plex­i­ty and cost of devel­op­ing appren­tice­ship pro­grams as a bar­ri­er. How­ev­er, we’ve seen how inter­me­di­ary mod­els can help address these chal­lenges in Baltimore.

Find out how Mary­land plans to expand its appren­tice­ship workforce

Career­Bound — an appren­tice­ship inter­me­di­ary mod­el cre­at­ed in part­ner­ship with Bal­ti­more City Pub­lic Schools, the Mayor’s Office of Employ­ment Devel­op­ment and Baltimore’s Promise — is help­ing to cre­ate a more coor­di­nat­ed work­force ecosys­tem that meets the needs of young work­ers and employers.

Orga­ni­za­tions like Career­Bound con­nect mul­ti­ple part­ners, who then col­lab­o­rate on the design of appren­tice­ship path­ways and sup­port implementation.

This includes:

• Coor­di­nat­ing employ­ers, schools and train­ing providers;
• sup­port­ing pro­gram design and cur­ricu­lum alignment;
• pro­vid­ing stu­dent sup­port and mentorship;
• man­ag­ing data shar­ing and out­comes track­ing; and
• secur­ing phil­an­thropic and pub­lic funding.

By reduc­ing the oper­a­tional bur­den and align­ing work­force part­ners, the inter­me­di­ary approach makes it eas­i­er for employ­ers to par­tic­i­pate while ensur­ing young peo­ple receive struc­tured, high-qual­i­ty work-based learn­ing experiences.

CareerBound’s in-school youth appren­tice­ship mod­el is based on the Career­Wise mod­el which is increas­ing­ly rec­og­nized as a promis­ing nation­al approach to scal­ing apprenticeships.

Q: How has Casey’s Bal­ti­more appren­tice­ship strat­e­gy evolved recently?

Akin­ti­lo: One of the newest inno­va­tions in Baltimore’s appren­tice­ship strat­e­gy is address­ing a key bar­ri­er to par­tic­i­pa­tion: trans­porta­tion. Many reg­is­tered appren­tice­ship pro­grams require appren­tices to have a driver’s license, espe­cial­ly in union or skilled trades.

Learn how Indus­try Appren­tice­ship Accel­er­a­tor is scal­ing Mary­land apprenticeships

Recent leg­is­la­tion passed in the Mary­land Gen­er­al Assem­bly now allows local edu­ca­tion agen­cies to apply for grants to pro­vide driver’s edu­ca­tion to stu­dents. Through Career­Bound, Bal­ti­more City Pub­lic Schools and Baltimore’s Promise suc­cess­ful­ly applied for and received this grant funding.

By remov­ing this bar­ri­er, Bal­ti­more is expand­ing access to appren­tice­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties and help­ing more young peo­ple enter career path­ways that lead to fam­i­ly-sus­tain­ing wages.

Ensur­ing employ­ers are engaged and par­tic­i­pat­ing is anoth­er major bar­ri­er when it comes to expand­ing paid youth appren­tice­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties. An excit­ing new update to our work is Casey’s sup­port of the City of Bal­ti­more as it expands its munic­i­pal appren­tice­ship port­fo­lio through tech­ni­cal assis­tance, infra­struc­ture and capacity-building.

In his 2026 State of the City address, May­or Bran­don Scott announced the cre­ation of the Bal­ti­more City Joint Appren­tice­ship Pro­gram. This pro­gram, led by the Bal­ti­more City Depart­ment of Human Resources and sup­port­ed by the Casey Foun­da­tion, will bet­ter con­nect City agen­cies, labor unions and con­trac­tors while cre­at­ing and strength­en­ing path­ways to employ­ment through pre-appren­tice­ship and train­ing programs.

Read the Blue­print for Maryland’s Future Pil­lar 3

Dis­cov­er how Career­Bound con­nects Mary­land employ­ers with young workers