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Secretary Sonderling Visits UVA Health's Earn While You Learn Program in Charlottesville

September 14, 2026 · USDepartmentofLabor · 0:01:59

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What happened

The WVIR29 segment reports that Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling toured UVA Health in Charlottesville with Representative John McGuire of Virginia’s Fifth District to see the system’s Earn While You Learn program, which the report says lets students graduate with hands-on medical experience and no debt. Sonderling said, as quoted in the segment, that the administration wants to look at models that succeed in local communities and provide students high-wage jobs without a lot of academic requirements up front.

The segment says the program, launched in 2022 as reported, offers paid on-the-job training for entry-level roles such as EMTs and pharmacy technicians and advanced roles such as nursing and surgical technicians. Sonderling said, as quoted in the segment, that President Trump has made reaching one million registered apprentices an administration priority and that the UVA program is exactly that model. The segment reports, as stated in it, that UVA retains 96 percent of Earn While You Learn graduates as full-time employees.

Why it matters

The visit ties a local hospital training program to a national administration goal — one million registered apprentices — and shows the Labor Department shopping for working local models to replicate rather than designing a federal program from Washington.

Sources: USDepartmentofLabor, “Secretary Sonderling visits UVA in Charlottesville (WVIR29)”, 2026-09-14 (official upload, embedded above; published 2026-09-14). The segment aired June 3, 2026, as noted in the upload description. Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.