Will ‘Apprenticeship Degrees’ Come to America?
Joe E. Ross
July 25, 2023
The emergence of prestigious “degree apprenticeships” in the United Kingdom has implications for the future of higher ed in the U.S., Joe E. Ross writes.
Among high school seniors, a privileged few get to pick between elite, world-renowned colleges like Columbia, Duke, Harvard, MIT, Northwestern, Stanford, Wellesley and Yale. What if they could pick Goldman Sachs?
Some now can. Dozens of famous employers—including investment bank Goldman Sachs and other luminaries like Deloitte, GE, IBM, JPMorgan, Nestlé, UBS and Rolls-Royce—have begun to offer a four-year paid “apprenticeship” that leads to a debt-free bachelor’s degree.
What’s the catch? Well, to apply for the Goldman Sachs gig and others like it, you need to be in the United Kingdom. Here in the United States, the apprenticeship-to-degree model is only beginning to emerge. If the idea takes off, it could be a long-term solution to the $1.7 trillion student debt crisis and restore lagging faith in American higher education.
