BY MICHELLE CHENG @MBCHENG15

As such, it’s no small investment: a single certified apprentice can run a company $25,000 to $30,000 dollars a year, which includes the college courses and a wage.

But companies say the investment is worth it because of the employee loyalty it fosters. “They’ve been part of your culture for two to three years,” says Armistead. “The idea is they’re going to stay.”

That’s what Keith Kregg, vice president at Innovative Systems in Raleigh, North Carolina, is betting. He says competitors have been “cherry picking” the company’s employees as soon as six months after they’re hired. As a way to preempt the job hopping, six years ago the company decided to develop an apprenticeship program to help grow talent in-house. The first cohort with five apprentices launched in 2015; this year all five will receive full-time offers with salaries upwards of $80,000. (Entry-level salaries without the training range from $60,000 to $65,000.)

In Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, Girish Seshagiri, vice president of ISPHI, which provides cyber services for the government, has found a way to make apprenticeships more affordable at scale.

In 2013, Seshagiri partnered with two other small companies–a credit union and manufacturer-and community colleges in Illinois to develop a joint apprenticeship program with a curriculum modeled after Carnegie Mellon’s. (ISHPI’s software team is based in Peoria, Illinois.) The group launched the first cohort two years later with seven apprentices. The model “will be applicable for the smaller employers, so they can come together,” he says. “None of us is big enough to have {our own} class of 15.”

The model is cost-effective: ISHPI’s apprentices earn $12.50 per hour plus mentorship and lodging. The companies collectively decide on college curriculum, wages, competency standards, and how to interface with government agencies.

In general, apprenticeships are “a big undertaking for the employer,” says Jacoby. In addition to the costs and logistics, white-collar employers and potential apprentices often also have to overcome the perception that apprenticeships lead to blue-collar occupations, she says.

Still, if the talent gap continues to widen, these programs are going to become more appealing. “Many employers are seriously worrying where the next workers are going to come from,” she says. “If your job has some skill attached to it, you’re thinking about who’s going to train them-so it’s possible that more white-collar companies will go there.”