The California Community Colleges and UNC System are testing out AI-focused apprenticeships and internships, backed by Axim Collaborative. Also, an essay urging education and workforce leaders to level with learners about how much we don’t know amid the rise of AI, and economist Guy Berger gives his take on labor market data and how AI is set to reshape work in the latest edition of The Cusp. (Subscribe here.)

Learning as You Go

Pretty much everything about AI over the past four years has fit the “building the plane as we fly it” cliché. The tech industry thrives in that uncertainty. Anthropic, for example, just filed for what could be a record-breaking IPO, even as its leaders warn that they’re not sure exactly how their models work or how risky they are. They see huge upside, but also potential for a really bumpy ride. 

Our education and workforce systems weren’t built for such turbulence. This newsletter edition looks at that challenge from several angles, including what a leading workforce economist sees in the data and the honest conversations we need to be having with learners. First up is the idea that apprenticeships, along with longer-term internships, could be one of education’s answers to building a response midair.

That approach would allow students to gain intensive, practical experience with AI at the same time as employers are experimenting with it.

That’s the case apprenticeship intermediaries like CareerWise, which operates across 35 states, have been making to employers, education partners, and Congress. Institutions like Miami Dade College, which has been at the forefront of integrating AI into education programs, also have been exploring the role work-based learning can play—with the college last month launching a new AI Elite Talent Hub that embeds students in local companies for a year. And philanthropies are starting to invest in earn-and-learn programs for the AI era.

Axim Collaborative just awarded two $750K grants—one to the California Community Colleges and the other to the University of North Carolina System—to test how that approach might work at scale within two large systems. The grants will support paid learning opportunities that put students to work on AI-related projects within their system.

In California, 40 students in the state’s community college system will receive a paid internship to work on an infrastructure project at one of the 116 campuses. In North Carolina, students from the UNC System’s 16 universities will work in registered apprenticeships on system-related projects, which the system is still identifying.

Both projects will get an assist from industry partners, including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Elevate. 

As AI becomes a bigger part of the workplace, students need a chance to put their skills to use, tackling the same real problems they might encounter in a job. Project leaders hope that combining a broad college education with practical experience and industry-recognized credentials will give students the knowledge and adaptability to navigate a rapidly changing job market. The bigger question is whether colleges can make that combination a sustainable part of how they prepare students for work.

“These institutions are not building one-off pilots,” says Philipp Schmidt, Axim’s senior vice president of technology innovation. “They’re developing a national standard for AI technician pathways that combines college instruction with on-the-job training and taps into existing funding streams to reach many more students in a sustainable way.” 

Industry partners could play an important role in making that happen.

Kristi Wellington-Baker, U.S. higher education strategy lead for learner innovation at AWS, says technology companies can help colleges keep pace with developments already taking hold in the workplace. Businesses that adopted AI early, for example, are increasingly experimenting with AI agents that can carry out tasks with limited human intervention. Colleges, like most of the public sector, generally lag behind.

Sharing new insights can help colleges prepare students for the technologies they’re likely to encounter on the job, she says.

“One of the most valuable things about any educational experience is applied learning that mimics a workplace environment—understanding how you work with people, understanding how you take a project-based learning experience and apply it to something new,” she says.

On the Ground: In South Florida, Miami Dade College is already seeing what happens when those experiences extend beyond a traditional internship.

The community college’s new AI Elite Talent Hub last month began placing students pursuing degrees in applied AI with businesses that need help adopting the technology. The initial cohort of 25 students will embed with local businesses for about 10 months, working on real AI projects while continuing their coursework.

“I’m not talking anymore about, ‘Oh, you’re doing a capstone,’ or ‘You’re doing a co-op,’” says Antonio Delgado, vice president of innovation and technology partnerships for Miami Dade College and founder of the National Applied AI Consortium. “We’ve had all those short-term types of work-based learning experiences. And now we’re going into, ‘No, the whole academic year before you graduate you spend it within the company doing real projects in AI transformation.’”

The program is aimed at smaller companies that want to use AI but lack the expertise or resources to hire experienced AI engineers or consultants. Companies get help with projects they might otherwise struggle to complete, and students graduate with experience they can show prospective employers.

Training for a Moving Target

For CareerWise, which supports and runs youth apprenticeships nationwide, the focus is on developing skill with AI—and the judgment that comes with real work experience—across a wide range of occupations. It’s built an onboarding curriculum that trains new apprentices on the fundamentals of how to use AI, which they then build on in their specific job.

“AI will touch every kind of work, from traditional occupations in the trades to high-level roles in fields like logistics,” says Noel Ginsburg, founder and executive chair of CareerWise. “Because its reach is so broad, AI shouldn’t be treated as its own occupation; it should be part of every apprenticeship.”

The new California Community Colleges internships will also cross fields, combining technical training with skills that students can carry from one job to another. Cameron Sublett, senior director of innovation and incubation for the Foundation for California Community Colleges, the system’s nonprofit partner, says the goal is for students to develop “applied co-intelligence.” That brings together durable skills, such as critical thinking, communication, and collaboration; technical skills specific to a particular project or occupation; and the ability to use AI effectively in that field.

The three together should serve students well, he says, even if we’re not sure exactly what jobs in the future will look like. 

The UNC System will be designing its apprenticeships around that uncertainty—with a major focus on helping students build judgment around using AI and adaptability, says Elizabeth Reilley, vice president of digital transformation and chief AI officer for the UNC System. 

After all, AI’s ultimate impact on different industries is still very much an open question. 

Read the full article, with more about what the UNC System and California Community Colleges have planned, on Work Shift. —By Margaret Moffett and Elyse Ashburn

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Colleges can partner with employers in ways that benefit both organizations. UpSkill America’s new guide gives higher ed leaders role-specific advice, a self-assessment, and a process for turning results into action, with working learners in mind. Visit employerfriendly.org to read “Employer-Friendly Practices: A Guide for Higher Education.”

Level With Learners

Emily M. Dickens, from SHRM, and SkillUp Coalition’s Elissa Salas argue in an essay for Work Shift this week that we need to level with learners about how much we don’t know about what skills and credentials will pay off.They use the example of a young woman, Molly, who attended a six-month coding bootcamp at the encouragement of her parents—only to see the market for software roles shift dramatically before she completed.

“For years, we’ve told young people that training + credentials = opportunity. And for many pathways, that’s still true,” they write. “But an AI-disrupted labor market is forcing us to be uncomfortably honest about what has always been a much more complicated equation.”

Dickens and Salas also call for better information on the value of credentials in the labor market, presented in ways that are easy for learners to parse.

Guy Berger, workforce economist in residence at Guild, makes a similar argument in the latest episode of the Cusp podcast, out today. Quality data on AI’s impacts is lacking, he says. What we can see is a steady but largely frozen labor market—one that is good for workers who are already in a job they like, but tough for anyone looking for work.

He calls it “the Great Stay,” and it’s a sign of a lot of uncertainty.

Berger sees a plausible future where AI kills some jobs, creates others—and remakes a whole lot of them, but that’s on a 20-year horizon or longer. Today, adoption is slow and there aren’t a lot of clear indicators of how AI’s impact will ultimately play out in particular industries. Learners, he says, need to see any investment in education and upskilling right now as only having a reliable payoff in the short-term and plan accordingly.

The Kicker: “These bets that you’re making on human capital, you should view them as, ‘I’m going to use this human capital for two to five years, and am I going to get the right kind of return for it,’” he says, “Rather than ‘I’m investing in the rest of my career.’”

Listen to the full conversation on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. —By Elyse Ashburn

Opinion

Open Tabs

High-Skill Manufacturing
U.S. manufacturers have increased their head count by 72K this year, yet many of those jobs are in management or blue-collar roles that require advanced training, reports Konrad Putzier for The Wall Street Journal. More than half of workers in airplane manufacturing—which is among the knowledge-intensive sectors adding jobs—have at least a bachelor’s degree. Semiconductor producers also are more likely to hire college grads than other sectors.

AI and Downsizing
Microsoft offered voluntary buyouts to 60K workers in the U.S. and several other countries. The move, which affects 27% of the company’s total workforce, comes as the company is seeking to balance its expensive AI buildout with an efficiency push. Barclays in recent days announced that it was laying off 5K workers, citing AI as part of the driver. And American Express said it was eliminating 3,500 jobs as it prepares for the AI transformation.

College Enrollment
Community colleges are the only segment of undergraduate higher education that has grown this fall, with a 1.2% enrollment increase, according to preliminary data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Overall U.S. undergraduate enrollment growth slowed to 0.6% after increasing 2.4% last fall. Master’s program enrollment dropped by 3.7% while computer and information sciences saw double-digit declines across sectors.

AI Strategy
The recently created RAISE US, which is focused on AI-driven job displacement and is backed by $500M+ from large corporations, revealed some of its strategy to The New York Times’ Lydia DePillis. The nonprofit will primarily work with governors, and emphasized collaboration with community colleges. The bulk of its budget will fund pilot projects, including plans to offer technical assistance to companies that want to retain workers as AI changes their roles, rather than eliminating them.

Job Moves
Adam Flynn has been hired by the U.S. Department of Labor as the deputy administrator of the Office of Workforce Investment within the Employment and Training Administration. Flynn has worked at the Education Department for roughly six years, most recently as director of policy, research, and evaluation.

Tracy Robinson has been hired as VP of member engagement and strategic networks at the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL). Robinson has worked in several roles at the University of Memphis, most recently as executive director for its Center for Regional Economic Enrichment.

I’ve enjoyed taking over the newsletter this week, along with reporter Margaret Moffett, while Paul Fain is on the road. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, subscribe here. —Elyse Ashburn