This brief explores how states use financial incentives to expand Registered Apprenticeship (RA) Programs and achieve targeted goals. The brief draws from findings from focus groups conducted with the following eight states: Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, and Mississippi. The representatives from the eight states reported that incentives are helpful in attracting employers to apprenticeship, expanding apprenticeship into nontraditional industries, and reaching underrepresented populations. Key challenges to the administration and implementation of incentives include the lack of awareness of incentives among employers, the difficulty in encouraging the take-up of incentives by certain employers, insufficient resources for marketing, and the limitations of upfront funding in addressing apprenticeship completion issues.

Key takeaways from the brief report include:
• Incentives are helpful for attracting employers to apprenticeships and expanding access to apprenticeship for underrepresented populations. 
• Challenges in the administration and implementation of incentives include the lack of awareness of incentives among employers, the inability to attract certain kinds of employers to use incentives, insufficient resources for marketing and advertising, and the limitations of upfront funding in addressing apprenticeship incompletion. 
• Incentive types include grants, reimbursements, and tax credits. Incentive recipients include employers, education and training entities, intermediaries, and workforce boards or community-based organizations, each of which can serve as an apprenticeship program sponsor. 

The State Apprenticeship Capacity Assessment is part of the Apprenticeship Evidence-Building Portfolio. The qualitative study aims to conduct a methodical review and assessment of the capacity of state systems and their partnership to design and deliver RA Programs and services, including pre-apprenticeship services.