Apprenticeship Degrees Are Gaining Ground. What Will It Take to Scale?

I was thinking about how to think about this conversation, Mallory, and my attention was drawn to the entrepreneurship involved in this work, not just your entrepreneurship, but the entrepreneurship generally that we're asking of this field of higher ed and of employers and policymakers.

Peter Thiel wrote one of my favorite books on entrepreneurship.

It's called Zero to One.

And in that book, he distinguishes between what he calls easy truths and impossible things and true secrets.

And so easy truths are things that everybody agrees with, like education is broken and blah, blah, blah.

They really offer no competitive edge if you're building your work around something that everybody knows.

Impossible things are those mysteries or those intransigent things that nobody can reasonably expect to solve.

And naming those things, I think, is important too.

And then the true secrets are kind of in the middle.

They're difficult to find.

They're possible to find.

But few people do.

But when they do, it gives the most opportunity to do big things.

And so I thought maybe we would try to dissect the field and diagnose the state of the apprenticeship degree in that framework.

What do you think?

Hey, and then with all our leftover time, we can tackle world hunger and conflict and get to world peace by the end of this.

I mean, look, we're just going to change everything.

That's the name of the game here.

Let's do it.

Let's start with the easy truths.

My sense, and tell me if you disagree with this, is that...

Things two years ago that seemed impossible suddenly are now thought of differently and almost approach conventional wisdom.

And so easy truths are the things that everybody now agrees with when it comes to apprenticeship degrees.

But my question to you is, what are those easy truths now that are actually wildly different from the assumptions of two or three years ago?

Yeah, I would say that apprenticeship degrees can exist in the United States and that there's an appetite for them.

I was thinking about how to think about this conversation, Mallory, and my attention was drawn to the entrepreneurship involved in this work, not just your entrepreneurship, but the entrepreneurship generally that we're asking of this field of higher ed and of employers and policymakers.

Peter Thiel wrote one of my favorite books on entrepreneurship.

It's called Zero to One.

And in that book, he distinguishes between what he calls easy truths and impossible things and true secrets.

And so easy truths are things that everybody agrees with, like education is broken and blah, blah, blah.

They really offer no competitive edge if you're building your work around something that everybody knows.

Impossible things are those mysteries or those intransigent things that nobody can reasonably expect to solve.

And naming those things, I think, is important too.

And then the true secrets are kind of in the middle.

They're difficult to find.

They're possible to find.

But few people do.

But when they do, it gives the most opportunity to do big things.

And so I thought maybe we would try to dissect the field and diagnose the state of the apprenticeship degree in that framework.

What do you think?

Hey, and then with all our leftover time, we can tackle world hunger and conflict and get to world peace by the end of this.

I mean, look, we're just going to change everything.

That's the name of the game here.

Let's do it.

Let's start with the easy truths.

My sense, and tell me if you disagree with this, is that...

Things two years ago that seemed impossible suddenly are now thought of differently and almost approach conventional wisdom.

And so easy truths are the things that everybody now agrees with when it comes to apprenticeship degrees.

But my question to you is, what are those easy truths now that are actually wildly different from the assumptions of two or three years ago?

Yeah, I would say that apprenticeship degrees can exist in the United States and that there's an appetite for them.