The High School Apprenticeship Challenge facilitates and funds paid internships for underrepresented and low-income high school students throughout Massachusetts. The program creates more than 100 new internship opportunities each year by subsidizing intern wages for small life sciences companies and research institutions to enable them to hire paid interns. The program also offers a pre-internship lab training program for some school districts that provides rigorous biotechnology/biomedical and professional skills development.

The MLSC reimburses eligible host organizations up to $4,080 per intern, based on $17 per hour for six weeks of full-time work. Internships can be part-time or full-time and must take place between May 1, 2024 and April 30, 2025.

The program seeks to create paid work-based learning opportunities for underrepresented youth, supplement life science education with rigorous out-of-school-time (OST) training, foster relationships between economically disadvantaged schools and life sciences employers, develop students’ professional workplace skills, increase awareness of life sciences careers, and build a diverse STEM workforce pipeline.

• At least 16 years old at the time the internship begins.
• Enrolled in or have recently graduated from a school that meets at least one of the following descriptions:
• Vocational technical high school as determined by Chapter 74 of the General Laws of Massachusetts or a comprehensive public high school with a life sciences Chapter 74 program.
• Public high school (including charter) located in one of the following “Gateway Cities” as determined by Section 3A of Chapter 23A of the General Laws of Massachusetts: Attleboro, Barnstable, Brockton, Chelsea, Chicopee, Everett, Fall River, Fitchburg, Haverhill, Holyoke, Lawrence, Leominster, Lowell, Lynn, Malden, Methuen, New Bedford, Peabody, Pittsfield, Quincy, Revere, Salem, Springfield, Taunton, and Westfield, and Worcester.
• Public high school (including charter) with a student population of at least 25 percent classified as “low income” by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
• Tuition-free private school primarily serving low income/ underrepresented students.

          OR

• Enrolled in the METCO Program, a grant program funded by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts intended to expand educational opportunities, increase diversity, and reduce racial isolation, by permitting students residing in certain cities to attend public schools in other communities that have agreed to participate.

Note: recent graduates must have received their high school diploma no earlier than the past two calendar years and must not be currently attending college. Graduates can intern the summer before their freshman year of college.