After slow start, state officials expect second-year uptick in career scholarship use

Academics are a big priority for Westfield High School senior Braeden Dewes. He stacks his schedule with Advanced Placement classes and extracurriculars.

So, when his teacher flagged him for an internship opportunity at Eleven Fifty Academy, it piqued his interest.

He was chosen for the internship, and using training he received through Eleven Fifty, he became part of a team that built a chatbot for the Indiana High School Athletic Association that could allow parents and students to ask questions about the association’s hundreds of pages of bylaws, bulletins and calendars.

Dewes said the organization is “heavily considering” making his team’s project available online.

Dewes was one of nearly 330 students who last year used the state’s Career Scholarship Account program to cover the cost of pursuing workforce development opportunities.

The CSA program offers high school sophomores, juniors and seniors up to $5,000 each year to offset expenses associated with participating in approved internships, apprenticeships, work-based learning and credential programs.

The money can be spent on classes and training, equipment, career coaching services and certificates. Those who demonstrate hardship can also use a portion of the account to obtain a driver’s license and pay for transportation.

Capacity in the program’s first year was set at 1,000 students; capacity this year is doubled, to 2,000, and many more students are expected to participate.

Already, more than 2,000 have started applications, and 774 have been approved to participate, according to the Indiana Department of Education. Applications are being accepted until Oct. 1.

How it works

The CSA program—which is administered by the Indiana Treasurer’s Office in partnership with the Commission for Higher Education and Indiana Department of Education—was created to give apprenticeship opportunities to students whose schools don’t offer certain training programs.

Those involved in launching and operating the program expected low enrollment the first year. They had only about a month to implement the program after the law that created it took effect on July 1, 2023.

Additionally, an eligibility technicality last year meant several hundred students who had been planning to participate in the program were removed, according to a statement from the Commission for Higher Education. Lawmakers resolved the hang-up last session.

“Any new program has its kinks,” said Abhilash Reddy, a spokesperson for the Treasurer’s Office. “We’re fixing them and making this program as well-run as possible.”

Last year, the Treasurer’s Office returned to the state $3.8 million of unused CSA funding; $5 million had been budgeted for the program. This year, $10 million has been budgeted.

Eyeing growth

State leaders told IBJ they expect the program to grow, especially after they saw initial success in making connections with employers and an uptick in student engagement in this year’s enrollment period.

The program’s future hinges on visibility and leaders’ ability to connect with the right stakeholders. This year’s program builds off last year’s progress, organizers say. They focused on tweaking the program’s infrastructure instead of building it, growing partner relationships and amplifying what existed already.

“It’s just, [you’ve] got to start somewhere, so we’re starting here,” Reddy said. “It’s only going to get bigger.

This school year, students, especially those who live outside of metropolitan areas, will find a greater diversity of options, said Ron Sandlin, the Education Department’s senior director of school support and transformation.

More than 3,700 program seats—or opportunities for students to choose from—have been approved. Sandlin said he hopes to eventually offer 5,000 program seats, enough workforce opportunities for every student to find one that is appealing.

“We are on the verge of this becoming a tool for everyone,” he said.

At least nine school districts and private schools have opted into the program. Thirty-five employers, 10 not-for-profits and four intermediaries (agencies that assist with student placement) are approved to work with students. State leaders also expect those numbers to grow.

While the program’s success will in part be measured by the level of participation, Sandlin said the overall focus will be the impact it has on what students do career-wise afterward.

“Ultimately, we’re trying to increase persistence in the workforce and completion rates in college,” he said. “We will measure [the program’s] effectiveness as to whether or not we are increasing those two metrics.”

Sandlin said program leaders are connecting with schools through intentional one-on-one and small-group conversations to explain how CSAs work in hopes that more students will participate.

Another way organizers are reaching students this year is through newly created Spanish-language materials, said Christina Kaetzel, executive director of the Indiana Education Scholarship Account.

Since the program is dependent on parent involvement, she said, leaders are attempting to be clear and more communicative. They’ve also streamlined internal processes between schools, intermediaries and employers.

Early returns

For educator Fred Yeakey at Providence Cristo Rey High School, CSAs have proved to be another tool—and an affordable one—to connect students with apprenticeship opportunities. Being able to apply scholarship funds to transportation was key.

“This really was very helpful for us, particularly,” he said. “Cristo Rey students are already at that poverty level, so any extra thing that we can add towards educating the student holistically certainly helps out.”

Dewes, the Westfield High School student, said he likely wouldn’t have pursued the opportunity at Eleven Fifty if not for the career scholarship account.

“A lot of the opportunities for experience and things, you need to pay for—like AP tests or courses,” he said. “Having it be free or getting paid was just another incentive to go out and get that experience. If it had been, ‘I have to pay for this experience or something’, then it might have set me off of actually not pursuing that opportunity.”

Kaetzel said she’s heard success stories already in the first year. She pointed to a new high school graduate making nearly $80,000 who credits the program for funding his growth as well as a set of twins who used the accounts to buy the equipment needed to start their nursing assistant and teaching careers.

“That just gives me goosebumps,” she said. “That’s what this program is about.”

Meanwhile, employers who participate get to see future talent develop right in front of them, Kaetzel said. Program administrators have heard good feedback already.

“This is a pipeline for who is going to be working for [the employers] at the end of the day,” she said. “That’s why these employers are investing a lot into the students, because they do need to hire folks.”

Chris Daily is vice president of learning at Blaizing Academy, formerly Eleven Fifty Academy, which hosted Dewes and more than 80 other CSA interns. In Blaizing’s program, students receive 24 hours of artificial intelligence instruction and spend the rest of their time using those skills to work with employers to solve problems plaguing them.

One student worked with Indiana Wesleyan University—which owns Blaizing through a not-for-profit—to dig through and summarize enrollment data.

Other students used their AI training to support their business endeavors or passion projects, Daily said. He mentioned one student who used AI to take years of poems she’d written and turn them into a book and another two who ramped up their respective businesses, one involving binary clocks and the other trade worker marketing.

“It speaks to getting the kids technology, giving them a direction, and getting the heck out of the way and [letting] them go,” Daily said.

He projected that the program will add locations and expand programming—such as marketing, analytics, software development or cybersecurity—that keeps students coming back.

EmployIndy, an organization that provides workforce services to Marion County residents, connects students participating in the CSA program with employers. The organization supported 22 students using CSAs last year through its Modern Apprenticeship Program. Students used their accounts for nearly every eligible use, said Betsy Revell, EmployIndy senior vice president of career-connected learning.

“I would say we had success in getting those students onboarded in the first year and being able to provide a lot of feedback to the state and the various agencies who are all working on this,” she said.

EmployIndy this year has more clarity about how to use and target the program to the students who need it, said Marie Mackintosh, EmployIndy’s CEO.

Building out the promise

CSAs are only one tool the state is using to increase educational attainment through apprenticeships and similar real workplace opportunities.

The state, through several new laws that are part of a larger initiative to “reinvent high school,” is attempting to provide students with more flexibility and opportunities to achieve hands-on workforce development training—beyond college prep—before they graduate.

It’s vital that students are presented with a variety of options to test out what is and isn’t for them career-wise, Yeakey said. “When given the chance, he said, students’ internal growth is “mind-boggling.”

“It is so important for human beings to learn what they don’t want to do—equally, if not more important than what they think they want to do,” he said. “When you get students involved—young minds involved at an early stage of apprenticeships, certifications, internship—it gives them the unique opportunity to have options to explore who they are.”

In the Blaizing program, students are learning how to leverage AI, which is providing immediate student benefits and employer returns.

However, because technology changes so quickly, helping students develop soft skills is as important as teaching them the technology.

“I’m trying to get them to be able to critically think, problem-solve, communicate, work together and do that in a way where they don’t even realize they’re doing that,” Daily said. “My goal is that we’re giving kids some foundational skills that they can go use to go forward with their career.”

“Touchpoints,” or exposure to industry and potential career pathways, are a recurring focus of EmployIndy’s student programming. The more students understand the options they have at a younger age, Revell said, the more informed decisions they can make about their futures.

EmployIndy is also one of many stakeholders attempting to shift what business leaders think high-schoolers can achieve in an apprenticeship. Mackintosh and Revell said their answer to any concerns opponents might have about putting young teens into jobs is to talk with one of them. The teens they work with are often eager, opportunity-seeking students who could bring enthusiasm and new ideas to a company.

Daily emphasized that participating CSA students, regardless of where they went to school, would “blow you away” with how smart and adaptable they are.

“It didn’t matter where they came from,” he said. “They were all very creative, and they were all very bright.”

Many businesses that are incorporating apprenticeships into their workforce strategies are seeing substantial rates of return, Revell said.

“It does matter, in my opinion for our economic growth as a community in the long run that we are having our businesses engage in more and more work-based learning activities with students more early and often,” Mackintosh said.

“It’s to me an excellent way for businesses to diversify their workforce in a number of different ways.”•