Career and Technical Education Yields Not Just Higher Earnings but Higher Test Scores

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Enrolling in Connecticut’s technical high school system increases male students’ earnings by roughly one-third in the years immediately following high school, a study has found. Not only do the schools boost young men’s professional prospects, the authors conclude, they have a substantial impact on their academic performance as well, suggesting that their early success could persist well into their careers. Somewhat mysteriously, female students do not realize the same educational or wage benefits.

The impressive returns to technical education may help explain the sustained demand for trade and vocational schools even during a time when the rate of college enrollment for American students is steadily climbing. According to polling, most of the public agrees that apprenticeships and other workforce training programs provide students with the skills to attain a good standard of living, and some evidence indicates that both revenue and enrollment at postsecondary trade schools have risen significantly since the beginning of the Great Recession. At the same time, most states are dealing with a pronounced shortage of CTE instructors in high schools.

The study, conducted by researchers at Vanderbilt University and the University of Connecticut, was circulated last year as a working paper through Brown University’s Annenberg Center. It is a comparatively rare analysis of a statewide career and technical education (CTE) program; much of the existing literature on the subject has focused on individual technical schools or programs.

National data indicate that 90 percent of American students take at least one CTE class during high school, though a report from the Washington, D.C.-based Thomas B. Fordham Institute released this spring suggests that they are not always guided to courses that offer the greatest likelihood for future employment. Seeing the popularity of vocational education — and the benefits realized by those who earn industry-specific credentials in manufacturing or information technology — leaders of major school districts have recently expressed a willingness to expand CTE course offerings.