Enhance the state’s education and workforce pipelines by supporting private sector efforts to expand apprenticeship and work-based learning. Simultaneously, continue to remove barriers to postsecondary enrollment by allowing undocumented students to qualify for residential tuition at Indiana state-supported universities.

APPRENTICESHIPS AND WORK-BASED LEARNING:

• Indiana legislative and executive leadership must continue to partner with private sector efforts to expand apprenticeships and work-based learning across the state.
• Clarify that the use of the state’s Career Scholarship Accounts (enabled under HEA1002- 2023) for eligible work-based learning experiences counts towards high school graduation requirements and ensure that students who participate in the Modern Apprenticeship Program, and similarly qualified apprenticeship models, earn credit that can be translated to post-secondary education.
• Provide authority to employers to define occupational standards and provide the authority for those to be incorporated into professional and academic education.
• Enact targeted employer liability protections to support high school juniors’ and seniors’ participation in on-site apprenticeships.
• Enable flexibility for high schools to participate in youth apprenticeship programs, including ensuring students participating in the Modern Apprenticeship Program are counted toward a school’s average daily membership (ADM) count and are supported in their participation through transportation, scheduling, childcare, or other needs.

RESIDENTIAL TUITION RATES:

• Allow students who are domiciled in the State of Indiana, have attended an Indiana high school for at least three years, or have graduated from an Indiana high school to be eligible for the resident tuition rate at state educational institutions.

EARLY EDUCATION & CHILDCARE: Ensure Indiana’s attractiveness to prospective employers and top talent by enhancing the availability of affordable, high-quality childcare and early education.

• Define early education and childcare as essential infrastructure for a 21st Century economy and critical to Indiana to take advantage of generational economic development opportunities, such as the CHIPS Act.
• Streamline state regulations on early education, while maintaining quality and safety:
  • Establish minimum licensing standards and enhance talent attraction to the profession.
  • Enable provider micro-site creation and provider site sharing.
• Support efforts to implement the tri-share childcare payment model.
• Support other recommendations of the Interim Study Committee on Public Health, Mental Health, and Human Services.