Five years after a pilot program launched Indiana’s first formal youth apprenticeship program, one industry’s leaders are diving deeper into an opportunity to connect teens to possible careers.
Hoosier bank and finance professionals, following the lead of their colleagues in Switzerland, will soon make apprenticeships available for Indiana teens who are interested in those fields.
The new banking apprenticeships, along with a similar effort with hospitals, will be the first steps in Indiana’s goal of better serving the 60% of high school students in the state who never attend college and earn any degree.
Beginning fall 2025, the Indiana Bankers Association plans to start a statewide banking apprenticeship where high school juniors and seniors are paid to work and train at banks as often as three days a week, and attend high school the other two.
Indiana Fifth Third Bank regional president Michael Ash visited Chase Your Potential, a Swiss online learning and training center, and member banks in Switzerland twice over the last two years as Indiana leaders crafted a plan unveiled last month to create thousands more apprenticeships. Those visits taught him the state could adapt and create opportunities for high school students that also would help banks.
“It’ll give the student a lot more experience and … it will give the employer an opportunity to have an employee doing real work,” Ash said. “I think it’s a win-win for the student and for the company.”
Indiana program would be among nation’s first
Though common in Europe, Indiana’s new apprenticeship program would be one of the first large scale white collar apprenticeship programs in the U.S. Traditionally building trades apprenticeships have dominated in the U.S.
In Indiana’s program, apprentices would rotate between bank departments for two years, sometimes directly working with customers and handling accounts, with the possibility of doing a third year while also attending college.
Students will also receive extra training in banking skills at a new state Financial Services Academy based on CYP. Students would likely take classes there once a month, either in person or online.
“It hasn’t been in an organized fashion (in the U.S.) before where the trade association is involved and also educating the students, which is a big piece of this,” said Amber Van Til, president of the Indiana association. “It’s going to give the banks the confidence that they (students) have also had the educational training that they need to be workforce ready.”
State reworks diploma requirements
The state legislature and department of education reworked state diploma requirements to give students more course credit, and flexibility of class schedules, when students pursue work experience and training while still in school.
CYP has shared its curriculum and overall banking apprenticeship plan with Indiana, which plans to adapt it slightly for the new academy.
“We’re going to probably stick pretty close to the Swiss model,” said Van Til. “It’s very well developed … the tracks that they have, the rotations that they have, the education CYP is providing is pretty much in line.”
Van Til said that though students will learn basic interaction with customers, they won’t be limited to just being traditional tellers, whose role she said has expanded over the years. They won’t be funneled into high-stakes investment banking either.
“Just because you come in the bank and you want to be an investment banker doesn’t mean that’s where you’re going to end up,” she said. “We’re going to assess the student while they’re there, see where we think their skill set is and try and direct them to where we think would best be a fit.”
“Are they good at writing?” she asked. “Are they good at communication? Do they like marketing? Do they like working with customers? Are they better behind the desk? Maybe loan processing. (We’re) seeing what their skill sets are, and then matching them up upon graduation.”
IU sophomore interned at Zionsville bank
How much demand Indiana high school students will have for banking apprenticeships isn’t clear.
Mann Patel, now a sophomore majoring in finance at Indiana University, interned at the Zionsville branch of Star Bank as a senior in 2023. That internship, just an hour a day for a semester, taught him enough about banking that he decided to continue pursuing the field, possibly focusing on wealth management.
But committing to that path as a high school junior would have been too much for him, even if more hands-on work than what the internship offered would have been tempting.
“Probably senior year I would have definitely considered it,” Patel said. “Going into college? Yeah. But junior year, if it’s two or three days full time, I probably would not have.”
Akshara Amuhadin, a junior interning at that branch now, also hopes to find a career in finance. She said she likes the real-world learning and would likely try the new apprenticeship.
“If you know for sure that this is the career that you want to go into, that’d be a really great way to get some real world experience about banking,” she said.
Fifth Third’s Ash said he believes both banks and students will take advantage of apprenticeships that are long overdue.
“When you see CYP and you see the students this seems so obvious,” he said. “You kind of kick yourself, like, why haven’t we done this sooner? Because it makes so much sense. But you know, we’re starting now, right? So we’ll get there.”
This story was written by Patrick O’Donnell for The 74, reported with support from the Spencer education reporting fellowship at Columbia University.
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