Building an Apprenticeship System in Indiana: How the Hoosier State is Adapting the Swiss Model

So, Michael, remember how recently we dove into Switzerland's apprenticeship model and how everyone looks at it as the gold standard?

Yes, Jeff. And we talked about how the US Keeps sending delegations over there, trying to learn from that system, but actually copying it. Here, it turns out that's not so simple.

Yeah, right. Well, Indiana is trying to do more than just admire the Swiss system. They've been actively learning from it and are now making some big moves to change how high school graduation works in the state. New requirements, new pathways, all inspired by what they've seen overseas.

So what does that really look like? And can Indiana's model offer a blueprint for other states?

And that's what we're going to dive into today on Future youe.

This episode of Future youe is sponsored by Ascendium Education Group, a non profit organization committed to helping learners from low income backgrounds reach their education and career goals. For more information, visit ascendiumphilanthropy.org subscribe to future you wherever you get your podcasts. And if you enjoy the show, send it along to a friend so others can discover the conversations we're having about higher education.

I'm Michael Horn.

And I'm Jeff Salingo.

Jeff, I am still very bummed that I could not join you for this conversation because Indiana's approach to apprenticeships and high school graduation requirements, those have been something that I've been actively following for a while now. I know a lot of the folks on the ground there and it sounds like a real earnest and frankly, you know, higher probability attempt than a lot of other places to translate some of those Swiss lessons that we talked about on part one of this two part series.

Yeah, Michael, it really is. And they're not just admiring the Swiss model from afar. They're trying to take some of the best aspects of it and adapt them to fit their own needs. It's about giving students more flexibility and, and real world readiness. And the timing couldn't be more interesting because Indiana has just approved these new high school graduation requirements. They were approved in December. They're going to go into place in a couple of years. And they're designed to give students more pathways to success, whether that's college, career training or straight into the workforce. And we're going to link to those standards in the, in the show notes. So I got to sit down with Claire Fidian Green. She's the president and CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks foundation and she's been at the forefront of education reform efforts in Indiana for years. She also served as Special Assistant for Education Innovation to former Governor Mike Pence, and she co founded the center for Education and Career Innovation. She walked me through Indiana's pilot programs, the trips to Switzerland to study their system firsthand. And now the state is putting those lessons into action with these new high school graduation requirements and aimed at building real pathways from education to employment. Claire, welcome to Future youe.

Thank you so much for having me. Glad to be here.

So the National Conference of State Legislatures put out a report called no Time to lose back in 2016, which really pointed to this urgent need to study other higher education systems to kind of discover what works. And you were telling us earlier that you read that report and it was kind of your light bulb moment. Why was that?

We awarded a grant to NCSL foundation to come in and share the findings of the report. It had four big recommendations. The one that really had the most, that resonated the most with our stakeholders was we really need to do a better job with our career and technical education system. And that's because we need to do a better job preparing young people for careers and meet the needs of employers. So that was the recommendation, the report that really took off like lightning in Indiana. And, and that's because employers have been struggling to fill their workforce needs for a long time. There has been a lot of effort put into enrolling kids in college and hoping that that's the solution. And what this report really pointed to was college, of course is an important solution, but it cannot be the only solution. We need to figure out additional ways of training young people for careers and meeting the needs of employers. Yeah.

So right after that you kind of took a group from Indiana to meet with Katie Caves in Switzerland. And Katie was our guest on the first part of this two part series about apprenticeships. What was the one thing that you took away from that visit?

Yeah. So in the NCSL report, Switzerland was highlighted as the gold standard globally for preparing young people for careers and meeting the needs of employers. So as part of our effort, we did have a planning group that went over to Switzerland to study at the institute that Katie and her boss, Dr. Ursula Reynold, lead for countries around the world. And it was amazing to see a system that operates at scale 65 to 70% of young people choose a paid apprenticeship starting in the 10th grade. And it expands the entire economy. So it's very different than what we have in the United States. And seeing it in action after reading the report, of course, really I think helped all of us on that planning team say there's gotta be a better way to prepare young people. And this is the example that that can really guide what we're doing in Indiana.

So let's then fast forward to today. Could you tell us a little bit more about the, you know, the apprenticeship system in Indiana that Indiana has built out to date?

Yes. So actually after that institute attendance, which was in 2019, we, the foundation awarded some startup funding to get a pilot program going in Indianapolis. And then we also at the same time decided to fund a statewide community of practice because there were other parts of the state that were also trying to figure out how to do this. We thought it's better that we all work together and try to be a little more systemic and then also elevate implementation challenges so that we could be talking about them as a group to figure out what are the solutions. Of course, that work started just as the pandemic was starting, which was not great timing, but we did have, I think, really amazing uptake from schools and also from the employers who said, okay, we're willing to be part of this experiment and hire young people. And what we decided to do in the 11th grade instead of 10th grade, like they do in Switzerland. But because of the pandemic, I think primarily it was really just whoever said yes, it wasn't organized by industry. So we did, through that community of practice, learn from our pilot sites what are some of the challenges that they were facing. And really there were two big challenges that kept coming up. One was that each apprenticeship was kind of a one off experience, experience with employers. And we didn't really have industry in the lead to say, here are the occupations that we need filled and here are the competencies that we need to see developed. It was really more kind of one off. The second thing was there was inadequate flexibility in the high school schedule for young people to actually leave high school and go to the workplace. So our friends, the Indy Chamber, they do an annual leadership exchange trip and we helped support them taking a group of people from Indiana to Switzerland in 2023. And that was great because we had 120 people from Indiana, business leaders, higher education presidents, government leaders, foundations, nonprofit leaders, all seeing the system at scale and, and importantly being together to talk about, okay, we have these pilot programs. What are some of the things that we should be thinking about doing differently to address the challenges that we have faced during the pilots?

Okay, so any other challenges that you faced during the pilots beyond the ones that you mentioned, the schedule and things like that?

Yeah, those are the two biggest. The others we had six that we identified. The next one was transportation. And because students weren't able to leave the building in any systematic way, they were at the workplace a couple hours here, a few hours there. That's very hard to come up with a transportation solution. Then the fourth was a lack of a labor market aligned career advising system. What we mostly have is young people's interests as guiding the career advising. And often it's how do I go to college? It's not necessarily here are the available careers that are here today and will be here in a decade from now. What's the best pathway for me to be prepared for that career? And then the last thing I would say, we have a very fragmented work based learning landscape. And what that means for employers is that they're often contacted by lots of different entities asking for engagement. And that's hard for them to respond to and it's really not systemic.

So I wanna talk a little bit then about how the system will grow and change as you scale. And I wanna focus on those last two things. You know, lack of alignment, a very fragmented system because you're developing employer associations that would give employers an influential role in developing these academic programs, which is really a departure from most American partner apprenticeship programs, which are really funneled often through academic institutions. Why is it so important to empower businesses in that way?

I will confess that it took me a while to really realize this, but the reason Switzerland is the gold standard is because they have employers in the lead for this pathway. And so ever since the Indy Chamber trip that I mentioned that was in 2023, we then led industry focused trips starting in 2024. And we've got more happening in 2025, where we do a deep dive with Indiana employers in industry, with their peers in Switzerland to see what is the capacity that they have created in Switzerland that makes it easier for employers to actually be in the lead. And they have what they call professional associations or professional organizations that are charged with convening all the employers in their industry to say, what are the occupations? And then what are the things you need people to be doing on the job. They then backwards map that into what are competencies that can be taught in an apprenticeship. And most of that taught at the apprenticeship experience happens on the job. It does not happen in a classroom. So you really do need employers in the lead. And so when we realized, okay, there is this missing capacity that does not exist in our country or in our state, that was what led us, the foundation, to say, okay, well, let's ask the Employers who went to Switzerland and met with their peers saw this capacity. Who is best suited to lead you around your talent needs within your industry. So we have awarded some startup funding to launch what we're calling industry Talent associations in Indiana.

Well, and you're also thinking about that flexibility at the high school level. And this is something that we heard from Katie when we talked with her, just how more flexible the high school system is and the high school experience is in Switzerland. And you're making some changes to the high school graduation requirements in Indiana. Could you explain those changes and how it introduced flexibility and why that's so important?

Yes, I'm very excited about those changes. The Indiana legislature did require the Indiana Department of Education and State Board of Education to make changes to the high school diploma and graduation requirements. So that law was enacted in the 2024 session and they spent last year going through the rulemaking process and that was approved by the State Board of ed December of 2024. So schools can opt into it, but it has to be in place within the next few years. And the exciting thing about that is that there is going to be a lot more flexibility for a high quality apprenticeship, like what we are building through this initiative that we're helping to fund here in Indiana where students can actually leave the high school building three to four days a week. So, so that they can be at the workplace during that time getting training, doing on the job work and actually contributing to their employer. The reason that's important is because in Switzerland, employers play a very big role. They pay an apprentice fee. They have internal staff that they have to pay to actually oversee this program. That's a big investment by employer. Why do they do that? Because the apprentices actually are doing productive work and they can't just be there for a few hours, a couple days a week. They actually need to be there for full, for full days to actually become a productive member of their team.

Yeah. And so how does the pathway that a student select influence the coursework that they take? Because again, because I'm assuming since they're going to be spending a decent amount of time outside of high school, that then affects their coursework, Correct.

Yes. So that's the other thing that we that is now possible with the Indiana high school diploma changes. There is a minimum that everyone has to achieve and then there's some options. If you want to go on to a four year institution, there's additional classes that you can take. Or if you want to go into a high quality apprenticeship, like what we've been working to develop, then you can do that as well. And that means that some of the competencies that you're gaining and developing at the workplace count towards your high school diploma credits. So that's a game changer. And that's. That is how it's set up in Switzerland. And so, for example, you don't just take every class. You take the classes that are aligned with your occupation that you are learning about in your apprenticeship. So, for example, a banking apprentice might need more math and economics than a healthcare apprentice is going to need chemistry and anatomy. Now, of course, there's basic things that every student needs to know, like language, etc. But they actually specialize the classwork to be aligned with the occupation. And that is going to be possible now in Indiana.

So when we had Katie on the last episode about apprenticeship, she said Indiana is the only place in the US that has been able to put together government, schools, districts, businesses, employer associations, and local community leaders and funding, like all the different pieces of this. And other states are still trying to figure this out. Right. So what's been the key to your success in bringing all these disparate groups together?

Well, I do think we have a history of a state as a state of getting together across sectors to try to work on complex challenges. That's. That's not atypical for us. And I do think the fact that we had pilot programs in place, so I already had a little bit of experience that was already happening in different parts of the state right before this indie chamber trip where we had leaders from all those sectors together for an intensive time in Switzerland. Seeing a system at scale and then having the opportunity to talk about what needs to be different in Indiana, that really was kind of the pivotal moment, I will say. They've been at the table intensively ever since. That's been almost two years. And we've actually grown to more than 275 people that are participating across sectors across our state and trying to help us figure out how do we actually create a statewide system at scale.

So, Claire, the one thing that was interesting to Michael and I when we interviewed Katie and really dug deep into the Swiss system, was this idea of permeability, the opportunity to move back and forth between vocational and academic paths because it's really important aspect of the Swiss system. Are you trying to bring that into the Indiana system in some way, this idea of permeability, so that students don't feel, because this has always been the case in the US they don't want students to feel tracked In a certain way, yes.

And that's why we love the SWIS system so much. And we do have both the two and four year institutions at the table with us, helping us figure out how do we actually build this and then create those mechanisms that makes it possible for an apprentice to go on to get a four year degree if that's what they want to do. In Switzerland they have a bridge year. It's a one year program that you can take after an apprenticeship that basically you catch up on the classes that you didn't take so you can go to a four year university. And so we are working right now with our community Commission for Higher Education but also the higher ed institutions to figure out how are we going to do the same thing because we don't want to create a dead end system. If you're making a choice when you're in the 10th or 11th grade, I don't know about you, but I can remember change my mind a lot. And so we want to provide that flexibility for our young people that's going to be better for them. It's going to obviously make their family and parents more excited about them choosing that option, but also gives them maximum flexibility for their career and, and education after the apprenticeship.

Claire, it's really interesting just going back to that episode that we did with with Katie just to see how a state has adopted this, you know, going from pilot, you know, understanding what, what didn't work there, bringing together all these various different parties and then now expanding this to a much bigger way statewide. I, I, you know, I now only hope that, you know, 49 other states can follow your lead in Indiana. I certainly hope so.

Well, thank you for saying that. And I will say there's a lot of work still to do and I am just so grateful for all the people that have been part of the pilots that have told us what needed to change and then are now this broader group trying to actually work on implementation. We still have a lot of work to do and we hope that the other 49 states go in this direction. And really the key is having employers lead and creating the capacity that actually allows them to do that in a systematic way, not in a one off way. That is the key that we think is what we need to do now in Indiana.

Claire, thank you so much for being a future you.

Thank you Jeff. I really enjoyed our conversation.

This episode of Future youe is sponsored by Ascendium Education Group, a non profit organization committed to helping learners from low income backgrounds reach their education and career goals. Ascendium believes that system level change and a student centric approach are important for our nation's efforts to boost post secondary education and workforce training opportunities. That's why their philanthropy aims to remove systemic barriers faced by these learners. Specifically. Specifically first generation students, incarcerated adults, veterans, students of color, adult learners and rural community members. For more information, visit ascendiumphilanthropy.org. Welcome back to Future youe off that interview Jeff, that you did with Claire and it seems like she laid out a playbook for how they have got this done so far in Indiana. Is that what you heard?

Yeah, Michael, I really wish I could run for governor somewhere after listening to her or probably better work for a governor because that's where I think this is going to happen. Scale is important, but we all know we don't have a national economy. We have regional and state economies with regional and state employers of course, and then we have A K through 12 system that is state based largely and higher ed systems within the state. So I really think the unit of change here is with state governments, not with the federal government. Obviously a lot of upheaval in the federal government bureaucracy anyway. But we've tried this at the federal level I think for generations and it just hasn't seemed to work. And so I actually think doing this at the state level is better. And I heard three things with Claire. One was a pilot program. They got a pilot program going in Indianapolis. The second thing is they took that pilot program and they formed a statewide community practice with all the key players to learn from the things that worked well in that pilot program and the mistakes they made. Then they brought together a group of all the various players that would need to make this work, government, school districts, businesses, employer associations, local government leaders to figure out what are the solutions. So those three pieces, the pilot program obviously, which they learned what they wanted to do in that pilot program from Switzerland, statewide community practice to learn from those mistakes and then really creating the group of various players who are actually going to put this into place in the states. And the other reason, Michael, I say why this is a state solution because I've seen kind of the competition that happens between states when a policy works in a state. Right. We saw this in the late 1990s when we had, you know, Georgia form the Hope Scholarship from the Georgia Lottery that sent all these high quality students that used to leave the state of Georgia. They started going to uga. And then we saw Florida copy that and Louisiana copy that and Texas, Tennessee copy that and West Virginia copy that. Right So I really do think that states are kind of laboratories again, especially now, given what's happening at the federal level. States are kind of the laboratory of changes in this, in this model. And if, if Indiana really does pull this off, I can kind of see not, you know, states, not necessarily going all the way to Switzerland to see what's going on, but actually going to Indiana to see what's going on and trying to copy from them.

I'm not sure which one is more expensive to apply to at the moment, but I've got my Salingo for Governor signs made up. I want two other things I hear in your answer, by the way, also is the continuity of having one funder at the table pushing this agenda forward. You know, and Claire and the Fairbanks foundation obviously was important. And then second, Indiana is small enough as a unit, right, to get your hands around. Whereas if you're trying to do this at the federal level, Gates foundation ain't going to, you know, ain't going to be able to push that across the board. I wish they could, but there's just too many competing interests. Right. At the federal level, state level, you can really organize people around. Claire also pointed to two other big hurdles though, that kept coming up in the pilot stage that you just referenced. One was the high school schedule. Let's get to that in a minute, Jeff. The other was that there were too many one off experiences. So, you know, one employer, one job, one apprenticeship. Sort of like pebbles, right? Coming up the mountain. That's a recipe to never get to scale for anything, right, Jeff?

Yeah, There was this related issue that Claire brought up on that front too. Right. We have a very fragmented work based learning landscape. And that means, you know, employers are often contacted by lots of different entities asking to engage. You know, Michael, as soon as Claire said that, I really thought of our friend Ryan Craig, who wrote the book Apprenticeship Nation, you know, and he kept talking about, you know, employers, colleges, you know, walk knocking on each other's door. You're never going to scale something on that. One to one kind of hand to hand combat. That was his, you know, his big takeaway in his, his book. As he said many times, we always hold up Switzerland like we did in the last episode on this topic in Germany. But you know, the UK and Australia, they were way behind those countries decades ago, much like the US is now on apprenticeships. And what happened is that they figured out that employers and institutions can't do this themselves. They need intermediaries that take out many of the tasks of good apprenticeships it gives both sides that single point of contact. Now, Ryan might think of intermediaries a bit differently than Indiana right there, because in Indiana, they have these employer associations. And as Claire said, employers have to take the lead because most of the learning happens in the job, not in the classroom. And I thought that was a really interesting point. But, Michael, because, you know, when we were in Boise together earlier in the season, we were at the College of Western Idaho, and we were looking at how they interacted with Micron. The employer certainly played a role there. There's no doubt about it in terms of equipment and curriculum. But the educational institutions seem to be in lead there, don't you think?

Yeah, I think you're right, Jeff, and it speaks to something. We'll come back to this multiple times. But the employer is the customer, right? And I've always thought of. I actually don't like saying students are the customer of higher ed. I know some people like that. I see them more as clients where the institution is sort of guiding them, if you will. Right. But the customer's never wrong. That's the employer. But you need the whole sector to be at the table, right. To make that supply, demand, balance really work out. And this notion of talent associations, I think is clever because employers are not going to spend the time, the money, make it a priority to really figure out what are the competencies. Can we, you know, smooth this out over the lifecycle of five years and solve it for the industry? Like that's not their problem. And so you reference the intermediary point that Ryan makes, and you're right. You know, in his mind, intermediaries are actually hiring, right? The individuals to defray that risk from employers. Here are the intermediaries that were doing somewhat of a similar function, which is like companies, their job is not employers. Their job is to, you know, deliver a service and make money so these associations can come together and really plan for those things that you need to have in a consistent apprenticeship program that's really going to yield results. Let's go to the second thing, though, now here, which is that high school schedule proving to be a challenge as well, because that's something, you know, when we talk to Katie Caves. The Swiss high school system is actually designed to have an apprenticeship track, right, Jeff?

Yeah. There was a backstory to this, Michael, that we didn't get in with Claire. But these new graduation guidelines in Indiana, there are three pathway seals that students could earn on top of the base diploma.

Right.

Those pathways are college employment or the military on top of the base employment or diploma, I should say. And then the rules also allow students to complete more work experience or take a more rigorous academic schedule to earn a kind of a second plus tier of each of those seals. And. And what was interesting when we were diving into the research for this episode was that Indiana tried to create something a little bit more akin to the Switzerland system in that they would have required a lot more work experience in high school as part of the changes to the grad requirements. Now, I know that is like music to your ears, Michael, but when those draft changes were released last year, they faced criticism from a number of different stakeholders. Parents, K through 12, higher ed, you know, and what were they critical of? They kind of felt maybe it would have left too many students unprepared. Forget this higher education. So even though we were talking about all these different pathways into life after high school, they kept thinking, well, the only pathway is high higher education. It seems like we just can't change that culture around high school as preparation for college and nothing else, can we?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it speaks to the primacy that we've had as college as the goal right out of high school in our system. And I get right now, Jeff, you're probably more on top of this, but a lot of polls are suggesting this is changing. Parents, you know, equal numbers say, gotta think about college for my kid is don't think about college for my kid. But the reality, I think, is that the expertise and infrastructure just isn't in high schools as of yet to put, you know, career as the primary aim. And you're not going to reverse 40 years of a college for all movement in just a couple of years. It's going to take a lot of time. And I think the other thing is those who want college for their kids, they're still driving the bus, right. Like, when we look at math requirements, calculus is still put up on that pedestal, despite you wishing it wasn't, Jeff. So, you know, the culture is. It is very deep. Right. And you and I have been thinking a lot about how cultures emerge and really become like roofs in a system that are very hard to jump off of. Two quick notes, though. Just as I'm thinking about this on what they did in Indiana, though, on the high school piece and what ultimately came out of it. Because it's interesting, in a lot of states, Massachusetts being one where I am, but a lot of states, there's been this growing movement to increase the supply of career technical education, high schools, CTE high schools, but then it's Been noted. You know, people push back and say, well, those schools are expensive. To build an outfit you have to have like all this stuff in there for different career paths. And you got to bring in expertise around that and equipment and so forth. And then there was this argument that Oren Cass of American Compass made where he said, well, that's actually still cheaper though than sending him to college. But actually maybe I, you know, maybe you disagree with this. But I think the better argument I took away from your conversation with Claire was that like, let's just put them in the workplace itself for part of the day. Because then you're leveraging the infrastructure of the workplace. It's what you said, like learning happens in the job, that's huge. And then I think the second piece of that in the high school change is the course taking on top of the apprenticeship or job based learning. And I think it solves the problem that Alec Resnick of Powderhouse Schools made to me in a piece that Danny and I, Danny Curtis and I did for education next around CTE for all. And his worry essentially was that if we too narrowly train people for certain vocations, like you figure out how to install solar panels on a roof, great, you know how to install solar panels on a roof, but you don't know the underlying physics and mathematics that will create an upwardly mobile trajectory for you over time or frankly as like, you know, equipment changes and maybe we don't need people doing that. And so what I liked about what I heard in the interview is like, if you're going into a state STEM related trade, you're going to be taking more math and science classes. So I think you will have that foundation, Jeff, to be able to do other things over time and not just sort of have a dead end job without any upwardly mobile or laterally mobile trajectory. But I think it still does leave us with this question, which is how do we change the culture in states, like to move in this direction? Because yes, it's all well and nice to say Indiana is moving there, but like we ostensibly want 49 other states competing with them now. Jeff.

Yeah, and just going back to that base knowledge, that's absolutely critical. I think that's going to be even more critical in an AI world where a lot of that base knowledge is going to be done by AI or some of that base knowledge is going to be done by AI and you want to move into higher level skills. And so having those higher level skills largely which come from kind of classroom learning, is really critical. And combining Those with kind of this physical labor in some cases, which can't be necessarily replaced by AI, perhaps by automation. Yes, I think is a good combination. It's in some ways future proofing you against what's going to happen in the economy in the future. And when I asked Claire about this know, pathway into, into apprenticeships and you know, how do you kind of get over that? How, you know, where, where does that cultural shift have to happen? You know, she said that whenever she's confronted by skepticism, you know, people who say apprenticeships and vocational education are somehow lesser than the college path, she always brings it back to the why. And, and the why, as she put it, is pretty strange, Stark. You know, less than half of the college students are successfully graduating, as we know. So if college isn't working for everyone, then we need a high quality alternative, which is exactly what they're trying to design in Indiana, and one that isn't treated like a consolation prize but is a legitimate respective pathway to a fulfilling career. And as I was listening to her, Michael, it really struck me that we have this instinctive value or instinctive way of placing value on certain majors or certain jobs. It's like there's a hierarchy where only some careers are considered successful. But really the question we should be asking is what gets you out of bed in the morning? What truly motivates you? And are we providing students with opportunities that align with that motivation? The reason why only half of students might be completing college is they don't have that purpose, that intrinsic purpose for what they want to do in life. And so changing the culture means changing that conversation. And Indiana is trying to do that by bringing employers to the table, by building these real pathways for students and showing that these pathways can just be just as valuable as the four year degree. And that was my big takeaway from the first part of this series in that we need to treat these as just as good as the four year degree. I think it's a critical report point because if we, you know, keep treating these alternatives as second rate, we're never going to make progress on this front. The culture change really has to be expanding opportunities, not ranking them in any way. And if more states start to follow Indiana's lead, we might finally see more of a balanced approach to preparing young people for the future. I, I really hope for that. So that's today's episode of Future youe. Thanks to Claire Fittian Green for joining us and thanks to all of you for listening. And if you haven't already, you know, make sure you subscribe, rate and review the show. And of course, stay tuned for more conversations about how education is evolving to meet the needs of tomorrow.