What would the full annual cost of scaling paid pathways look like when intermediary infrastructure is included alongside direct internship expenses?
Workforce Understory Episode: Episode Three — Paid Pathways as Infrastructure
Geography: Statewide
Topic: Internship costs, intermediary infrastructure, employers, and system coordination
The takeaway
Direct internship costs represent only part of the investment required to build a statewide paid-pathway system.
Adding an illustrative intermediary infrastructure cost equal to 20% of direct placement expenses increases the projected annual investment from approximately $15.7 million to $18.9 million in 2026.
By 2035, the annual cost rises from approximately $75 million in direct placement expenses to nearly $90 million when intermediary infrastructure is included.
That means coordination, employer support, participant matching, administration, and quality assurance would account for approximately $3.1 million in 2026 and $15 million annually by 2035.
A system capable of delivering 17,000 high-quality placements would require nearly $90 million per year—and roughly one-sixth of that investment would support the infrastructure connecting learners, employers, and programs.
What this visualization shows
This visualization builds on the direct-cost model for expanding paid internships and high-quality work-based learning across Hawaiʻi.
The earlier estimate assumes a direct cost of approximately $4,410 for each six-week placement, including:
Participant wages
Workplace supervision
Administration associated with the individual placement
Supplies and materials
This visualization adds a separate intermediary infrastructure allowance equal to 20% of those direct costs.
Under the modeled growth path, the combined annual cost rises from approximately $18.9 million in 2026 to nearly $90 million by 2035.
The intermediary allocation is intended to represent the shared capacity required to operate a coordinated system across thousands of employers. That could include employer recruitment, learner preparation, placement matching, payroll support, supervisor training, troubleshooting, data collection, quality assurance, and coordination among educational institutions and workforce programs.
The 20% figure is a planning assumption rather than a documented estimate of what Hawaiʻi’s system will ultimately require. Actual infrastructure costs could be lower if organizations achieve significant efficiencies at scale. They could also be higher because of Hawaiʻi’s geography, limited employer capacity, and the complexity of coordinating placements across islands.
Why this matters
Internship wages are visible and relatively easy to explain. Coordination infrastructure is less visible, even though the placements may not function without it.
Someone must recruit employers, identify appropriate work, prepare participants, match people with opportunities, manage expectations, support supervisors, solve problems, track participation, and ensure that experiences meet agreed-upon quality standards.
Those functions become especially important in Hawaiʻi because the employer base is dominated by small firms.
A large company may have human-resources staff, payroll systems, legal support, and established internship procedures. A small business may need an intermediary to perform many of those functions before hosting even one or two learners becomes practical.
Hawaiʻi’s geography adds another layer. A statewide system must account for distinct employer bases, educational institutions, transportation challenges, and labor-market conditions across multiple islands and counties. The infrastructure needed in Honolulu may not resemble what is required in rural Hawaiʻi County, Maui, or Kauaʻi.
Intermediary funding can also be politically and institutionally difficult to sustain. Direct payments to learners or employers produce visible outputs. Investments in coordination staff, shared technology, employer relationships, and data systems may be treated as overhead even when they are essential to producing those outputs.
The question is therefore not simply whether Hawaiʻi can fund internships. It is whether the state will fund the connective capacity that allows thousands of separate placements to function as a coherent system.
This evidence invites Hawaiʻi to ask:
What intermediary capacity must exist in every region and industry for paid pathways to operate reliably at statewide scale?
Evidence:
Questions this visualization helps answer
How much does a 20% infrastructure allowance add to the annual cost?
What would the combined system cost be in 2026?
What would it reach by 2035?
How much annual funding would support intermediary functions rather than direct placements?
Which activities might be covered through the infrastructure allocation?
Why are direct placement costs alone insufficient for planning a statewide system?
How does the cost of coordination grow as the number of placements expands?
Curiosity:
Questions this visualization raises
Is 20% the appropriate assumption for intermediary infrastructure?
Does Hawaiʻi’s island geography require a larger coordination investment than other states?
How does a small-employer economy affect the cost of employer recruitment and support?
Which intermediary functions are already included in the direct placement estimate, and which are additional?
What would be covered through the proposed infrastructure allowance?
Which organizations in Hawaiʻi currently perform some of these functions?
What is the combined capacity of existing educational, workforce, industry, and regional intermediaries?
Could organizations such as MEDB, HAH, chambers of commerce, community colleges, and workforce boards expand their roles?
Would existing organizations need additional staff, technology, funding, and statewide coordination?
Does Hawaiʻi need one statewide intermediary, a distributed regional network, or both?
How should responsibilities be divided among regional, industry, and institutional partners?
How many employers and placements can one intermediary staff member support effectively?
Which functions could be centralized, and which require local relationships?
Could shared technology reduce the long-term cost of matching, reporting, and employer management?
How much would it cost to create and maintain a statewide placement-tracking system?
What level of quality assurance would be required across thousands of worksites?
How should intermediary performance be measured?
Would organizations be funded according to placements, employers served, participants supported, or system functions performed?
How much initial capacity-building funding would be required before placements could expand?
What portion of intermediary costs should be supported through public funding, philanthropy, employers, or educational institutions?
How can infrastructure funding remain stable when individual grants and programs end?
Would the infrastructure percentage decline as the system grows, or would geographic and employer complexity keep it relatively constant?
What would the total cost be under alternative assumptions of 10%, 15%, 25%, or 30%?
How should Hawaiʻi distinguish unnecessary administrative burden from essential connective infrastructure?
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