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In a Kansas City classroom, 20 students were learning how basic circuit boards work. They fiddled with knobs, switches, levers and wires; if they got the connections right, tiny light bulbs glowed.
The students, recruited for the opportunity by Panasonic, were participants in an eight-week apprenticeship course that involved classes at the community college and on-the-job training. When they’re done, they will be among the first workers at the company’s new electric vehicle battery factory in nearby De Soto, Kansas. The $4bn manufacturing plant – touted as the largest EV battery factory in the world – is expected to open in early summer and eventually employ roughly 4,000 people. Panasonic also paid for the students’ tuition, as well as the instructor’s salary.
Apprenticeship programs like this one have been heralded as the future of workforce development. Born out of partnerships between industry and community colleges, these short-term programs offer credentials closely aligned with employer needs and are often referred to as the pathway to high-skill, high-demand, high-wage jobs. In this case, Panasonic and two Kansas colleges created theirs in a matter of months, adapting an existing curriculum to meet factory demand.
“We’re helping them build their workforce from the very beginning,” said Greg Mosier, the president of Kansas City Kansas Community College (KCKCC).
During the Biden administration, the federal government invested billions of dollars to help build and expand domestic electric vehicle and battery production.
But the Trump administration has thrown this career pathway into uncertainty. On his first day in office, Donald Trump signed an executive order that scrapped a Biden administration goal that half of all new cars sold in the US by 2030 be electric; called for the elimination of tax credits for the vehicles; and pushed to undo regulations around pollution and fuel economy standards. Trump also paused federal funding to build electric vehicle chargers, ordered thousands of stations disconnected at government sites and tried to freeze spending on clean energy projects.
A Princeton analysis said these changes would wipe out demand for new electric vehicle manufacturing in the United States, causing electric vehicle battery sales to drop by about 40% by 2030 and putting half of the existing plants at risk of closure. In the final quarter of 2024, EVs made up more than 8% of all vehicle sales.
After initially agreeing to let a reporter access the classes it started at KCKCC and talk with students, instructors and a Panasonic representative canceled that offer without explanation, and did not respond to subsequent interview requests.
Few state leaders were willing to speak about how the federal policy changes would affect community colleges and businesses in the state. Kansas governor Laura Kelly, a Democrat, declined to comment. Representative Sharice Davids, a Democrat who represents the congressional district where the Panasonic facility is being built, called Trump’s decision to roll back tax credits “harmful”. In a statement to the Hechinger Report, she said the president’s executive orders “throw uncertainty into the mix, not just for Panasonic but for every worker, supplier, and small business that stands to benefit”.
In recent years, community colleges have led the charge to build a skilled workforce for electric car companies and their suppliers, for jobs that often require some postsecondary education but not a four-year degree. Pima Community College in Arizona, Richland Community College in Illinois, Wake Technical Community College in North Carolina and Rio Hondo College in California are among the institutions that have started such programs.
The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) operates an Electric Vehicles Hub – in partnership with Tesla and Panasonic and funded with $8m in federal dollars – that helps colleges share best practices and track student outcomes. There are a limited number of qualified instructors for these programs, and they require specialized equipment and computer programs that are expensive, said Martha Parham, who heads communications for the community college association. The KCKCC program’s lab, with its specialized computer programs and equipment, cost $5m.
KCKCC took an existing two-year curriculum in advanced manufacturing and initially created a 16-week course that included both classroom instruction and practical training. But Panasonic couldn’t wait that long, said Mosier: “To ramp up, they really needed to get people going at a faster rate.”
So the college, along with another local college, Johnson County Community College (JCCC), worked with Panasonic to understand exactly which employee skills it needed immediately and then shortened the course to eight weeks – effectively doubling the number of students who could participate. KCKCC and JCCC plan to cycle a combined 200 students through this entry-level course each year. The starting salary is expected to be more than $50,000.
JCCC, whose program will begin in June, is working to train Panasonic supervisors as instructors, who will then transition as supervisors when the class moves to the factory floor. “So they will have a familiar face and someone who understands their skill set,” said L Michael McCloud, the provost. The credentials are also stackable, meaning they will count toward a two-year associate degree at both colleges. In addition, JCCC developed an agreement with Kansas State University to recognize the credentials as part of a bachelor’s degree in engineering technology.
Panasonic also sponsors students in other KCKCC classes, including an associate degree class in automation engineering. Justin Jefferson, a student in that class, said he signed up too late to secure one of the Panasonic spots, about half the class. Still, he is determined to work at the company once he graduates: “Panasonic is preparing for the future,” he said.
Jefferson, 38, has held several jobs over the years, including as a butcher and as a health aide; now, more than anything, he wants stability. “That way I won’t have to deal with the stress of not having enough or just having enough,” he said. His classmates range in age from recent high school graduates to career switchers in their 50s.
McCloud said staff have been fielding calls daily from people asking about Panasonic offerings. Local school district superintendents have reached out too, he said, to learn how their students can get a leg up in applying for Panasonic jobs.
Although community colleges have not been the focus of Trump’s cuts to and attacks on higher education institutions, they are potentially vulnerable. During the 2022-23 school year, nearly 15% of community college budgets came from federal sources. In addition, 48% of the roughly 10.5 million community college students in 2020 received some sort of federal aid.
At her confirmation, Trump’s education secretary, Linda McMahon, said she supports expanding postsecondary education and training pathways, including apprenticeships. At the same time, though, the Trump administration has canceled some grants for apprenticeship programs and research projects and terminated the advisory committee on apprenticeship. The labor and of education departments did not respond to interview requests.
On a weekday in February, the site of the sprawling new Panasonic facility in downtown De Soto was abuzz with activity. It sits on the former Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant, abandoned since the early 1990s. “There was a lot of blight,” said Rick Walker, the part-time mayor of De Soto, a community of 6,500. Residents worried about what would become of the site, Walker recalled. “Was it just going to be this zombie wasteland forever?”
Today, construction workers, cranes and cement trucks crowd the nearly 5m sq ftf building site. At lunchtime, a nearby Mexican restaurant was packed with some of the 3,300 workers hired to build the plant. Four new eateries have opened. A struggling grocery store is busy again. New apartment units are fully occupied. Since Panasonic arrived, the town has had a 130% increase in sales tax revenue, which has allowed city leaders to cut property taxes by a third, said Walker.
Greg LeRoy, the executive director of Good Jobs First, a watchdog group that tracks corporate subsidies, points out that there is a lot of public money at stake. To attract the company, the Kansas Legislature created an incentive program awarding Panasonic more than $829m in tax credits, payroll reimbursement, workforce training and sales tax exemptions on construction materials. It’s also eligible for federal corporate income tax credits, which he estimated at $6.8bn. LeRoy said the public money is tied to output, which is less certain because of the federal policy shift. “If they don’t produce, they’re not going to get the credits,” he said.
Local governments in Kansas are shouldering the greatest risk, he said, because they’ve had to spend millions of dollars up front – preparing land for development, building and widening roads, and installing new utility hookups. “They had to build an entire new fire station because this plant has special fire risks associated with it,” he said. As a cautionary tale, LeRoy cited FoxConn, whose much-touted Wisconsin factory remains largely undeveloped, costing local governments about $300m in land rights, water mains, roads, eminent domain purchases and other expenses.
Walker, the De Soto mayor, said his city has put in $2m to date, to widen roads, which leveraged an additional $60m in state funds. “Even if Panasonic shuttered their doors before they open, we’re not going to go bankrupt,” he said. The company has funded much of the infrastructure work through a Tax Increment Financing district designation, he said, which freezes taxes at a pre-development level and diverts future tax revenue for infrastructure improvements. Panasonic is occupying just 300 acres of the 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare) site, Walker said, and he hopes the infrastructure improvements will attract other companies.
If the demand for electric vehicles falls, it could lead to less investment in training, fewer jobs and poorer economic prospects for states like Kansas. But many people here in this region, which voted decisively for Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024, didn’t seem concerned as yet. Especially in the Kansas City area, “EVs are here to stay” was a common refrain.
Walker, who is also an engineer, said he said he was “distressed” to read about the federal government’s decision to move away from battery-operated cars. “Electric cars are much more efficient, it’s not just about the environment,” he said. Still, he believes the adoption of electric vehicles is inevitable. “While the demand or sales may be slower, I don’t see that flatlining or reversing.”
JCCC’s McCloud acknowledged the fear, but said he hasn’t heard “any broad concerns about the viability of the factory”. He added: “While this plant is designed around batteries that would function for electric vehicles, it’s my understanding that those power sources will possibly also be useful in other ways.” Mosier from KCKCC, said he didn’t think a “couple of actions at the federal level” would shut efforts down.
Jefferson, the KCKCC student, also remains optimistic about the long-term prospects of the EV battery factory and his potential future in it. “You know you read stories about people who worked at General Motors for 20 or 30 years and do OK?” he said. “That’s my goal.”
This story about apprenticeships was produced by the Hechinger Report, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter
