President Obama on Wednesday will announce $175 million in new apprenticeship grants during a visit to Macomb County Community College in Warren, Mich., as part of the administration’s push to expand apprenticeships, reduce student-loan debt and make two years of community college free for qualifying students.
The American Apprenticeship Grants Obama will discuss Wednesday afternoon are being divvied up among 46 public-private partnerships that pledged to take on 34,000 new apprentices in various industries, including healthcare and IT, over the next five years, according to the White House.
Obama is traveling with Vice President Joe Biden’s wife Jill, whom he called his “favorite community college instructor” in an email to supporters sent Tuesday.
The vice president himself stopped by the White House Apprenticeship Summit on Tuesday — a gathering of approximately 100 employers who pledged to expand apprenticeship opportunities — to tout the virtues of skilled trades.
Biden said a program in Detroit took 50 African-American women with no more than high school degrees and trained them to become computer programmers ultimately earning $57,000 to $108,000.
Last summer Biden led a review of federal job-training programs that led to, among other things, the administration’s apprenticeship push.
According to the White House, 87 percent of apprentices who complete their programs win jobs with starting salaries exceeding $50,000. Employers “get an average of $1.47 back in increased productivity, reduced waste and greater front-line innovation” for every dollar spent on the grants, the White House stated.
In his proposed fiscal year 2016 budget, which begins Oct. 1., Obama is seeking “$100 million in competitive grants to strengthen state and industry apprenticeships and to create a $2 billion Apprenticeship Training Fund to help double the number of apprentices in America.”
In addition to the Labor Department-run apprenticeship grants, Obama will unveil the College Promise Advisory Board, which Jill Biden will lead. Former Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer will serve as vice chairman of the 32-member board while Martha Kanter, a former Education Department under secretary, will direct the body intended to oversee Obama’s State of the Union call to make two years of community college free to all qualifying students. The board will launch the Heads Up public-service campaign to promote the free community college initiative.
Obama selected Macomb County Community College as the backdrop for Wednesday’s announcement because he first laid out his community college vision there six years ago. The school also partners with the Kalamazoo Promise, a philanthropic endeavor that covers tuition for graduates of public schools in Kalamazoo, Mich. In its eight years, approximately 5,000 students have benefited. The scholarship program has inspired similar initiatives in other cities and states.
Cabinet members are also fanning out across the country to promote the administration’s education initiatives. For example, next week Education Secretary Arne Duncan will take a week-long bus trip to discuss the programs. Obama will meet Duncan for a town-hall meeting in Des Moines, Iowa, on Monday.
