Emilee Ramirez, center foreground, attends an apprenticeship class at the Laborers Training School in Phoenix on March 19. Heather Long/The Washington Post

Emilee Ramirez has something many Americans without college degrees crave: an apprenticeship that pays well and trains her for a middle-class career. Ramirez, 31, is nearly done with her two-year apprenticeship and is about to become a journeyman. During the day, she works on road construction projects around Phoenix. Many evenings, she attends classes at the Laborers Training School, a union facility where she learns everything from traffic control to how to lay concrete. Already, she earns $23.50 an hour, plus health care for her family. This will jump to $26 when she graduates from her apprenticeship this fall. She told me repeatedly it’s the best job she has ever had. It even comes with a pension.

The United States is in the midst of deep soul-searching about how to create opportunities for young people to live the American Dream without needing a four-year college degree. In other countries, the answer is simple: apprenticeships. But this country largely abandoned that model in the 1990s and early 2000s during a push to get more young people into college — and now needs to change course. The next president should champion an apprenticeship renaissance with a goal of creating openings for 3 million people in the next five years.

Momentum is underway to make this happen. Currently, around 643,000 apprentices are working in registered programs, according to the Labor Department. This number is modest, but it’s more than double what it was in 2014. The growth took off when Congress began funding apprenticeships at the end of the Obama administration. This investment has slowly risen to $244 million today. Imagine what $2 billion would do. A modest investment could bring massive change.

The United States will not soon imitate Germany or Switzerland, where half (or more) of young people are entering apprenticeships. But right now only 0.4 percent of the U.S. workforce is in apprenticeships, and that share can easily increase. A realistic goal is about 2 percent. Both Britain and France are around this range. In the United States, it would mean having about 3 million apprenticeships a year.

In recent years, American apprenticeships have successfully expanded beyond the construction trades. Manufacturing, finance and tech have seen encouraging growth. Google and JPMorgan Chase, for example, now offer programs.

Young people love the “earn while you learn” model, because they don’t need to take out student loans to acquire valuable skills. And businesses that have launched apprenticeships often find that their new employees remain very loyal.

Two years ago, after struggling to hire new machinists, GT Automation in Fort Wayne, Ind., started an apprenticeship that allows workers to earn $22 an hour plus health benefits and a 401(k) retirement plan. They work on the shop floor during the day and attend classes at a local technical school in the evening. The company pays for all the tools and coursework, which leads to an associate’s degree.

“Apprenticeships are a great recruiting tool,” said GT Automation’s operations director, Ryan Vande Water.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to overcome is the public mindset. In the United States, unlike in other countries, apprenticeships are stigmatized as a path inferior to college. Most of the apprentices I met on a recent trip to Phoenix said they learned about their programs from family or friends, and they were shocked that more people were not even aware of the possibility. Ramirez joined the Laborers Training School program shortly after her husband started there. The opportunities have changed their lives and given their four children financial security.

“I never really pictured myself getting into this type of industry, but the benefits are really amazing,” Ramirez said. As one of the few women in the program, she enjoys proving men wrong when they underestimate her.

States as diverse as California, Arkansas and South Carolina are pushing to grow apprenticeships. South Carolina offers companies a $1,000 tax credit per year per apprentice — and has also simplified the paperwork and made it easy for companies to link up with the state’s technical college system for apprentice training and certification. Yet no state has managed to get more than 1 percent of its workforce into apprenticeships, data show.

What’s also needed to help apprenticeships multiply significantly is a nationwide credentialing system. Everyone knows what a four-year college degree is, and employers know what to expect from college graduates. A similar certificate is needed for apprenticeships that can be easily recognized around the country. This is one way the federal government can be helpful.

President Joe Biden has tried to grow apprenticeships by greatly increasing funding and including worker training requirements in the Chips and Science Act to bring back the semiconductor industry, and in the Inflation Reduction Act to expand green energy production. As a result, a number of companies have launched programs, and several have begun to recruit their first cohorts. But Biden’s goal of at least 1 million apprentices a year isn’t ambitious enough.

For a small investment, the next president can create millions more career launchpads for young Americans.

Heather Long is a columnist. She was U.S. economics correspondent from 2017 to 2021 and a member of the editorial board from 2021 to 2024. Before The Post, she was a senior economics reporter at CNN and a columnist and deputy editor at the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa. She also worked at an investment firm in London and was a Rhodes Scholar.