College Credit for Apprenticeship

The New Jersey State AFL-CIO has long recognized that college-level learning takes place in union apprenticeship training programs and has been working with our partners to get colleges and universities to award credits for apprenticeship toward associate and baccalaureate degrees in New Jersey's community colleges as well as our senior colleges and universities.

While several union apprenticeship programs have established articulation agreements with individual colleges throughout the State of New Jersey to award college credits for apprenticeship, the most comprehensive approach to the development to statewide articulation between registered apprenticeship programs and colleges is the NJ PLACE Program.

New Jersey Pathways Leading Apprentices to a College Education
( NJ PLACE)

Under the leadership of the New Jersey State AFL-CIO, the State Employment and Training Commission, and the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development, a collaboration that included New Jersey 's 19 community colleges, organized labor, and several state agencies, developed a statewide model to award college credit for participating registered apprenticeships in the building and construction trades.

This initiative should help to remove the wall that traditionally separates vocational and academic courses of study. It values the skills that people attain through apprenticeships and rewards the attainment of those skills with college credit. An important goal of NJ PLACE is to provide students, parents, teachers, and school counselors with a new understanding of apprenticeships and other experiential learning – not as an alternative to a college education, but rather as a pathway – a very exciting and promising pathway – to a college degree!

Click here to learn more about NJ PLACE

For more information about this program, contact Chris Estevez, NJ State AFL-CIO Education & Training Coordinator at estevez@njaflcio.org or call 609-989-8730.