Career and technical education has risen on the educational radar in the past decade, transforming itself from a college alternative into a new kind of college pathway.
What is the definition of career and technical education?
Career and technical education鈥揷ommonly known as career-tech ed or CTE鈥揹escribes classes that are designed to prepare students for work.
How is career and technical education different from vocational education?
In some ways, it鈥檚 not that different. In many high schools, you can still find the same voc-ed classes that existed half a century ago. They prepare students for jobs that don鈥檛 typically require college degrees, such as child care, welding, cosmetology, or plumbing.
But in important ways, CTE is very different than your grandfather鈥檚 voc ed. Many programs now focus on areas typically associated with associate or bachelor鈥檚 degrees, such as engineering or business. Because career-tech-ed classes of all kinds are increasingly seen as roads to additional study after high school, they are meant to be more academically rigorous than those of a previous generation.
How many students are really opting for career technical education programs?
A lot. About 8.3 million high school students鈥攏early half the U.S. high school population鈥攚ere enrolled in one or more CTE courses in 2016-17, for the just-reauthorized , the main federal law that provides funding for CTE programs. That鈥檚 up from 7.6 million in 2007-08.
Nearly half of the students in CTE classes are CTE 鈥渃oncentrators,鈥� which typically means that they take two or more related courses in a particular career area.
Isn鈥檛 career-tech ed mostly for boys? What about girls?
Actually, that鈥檚 an outdated notion. Nearly half of the students enrolled in high school CTE courses are female. Gender-based patterns by subject matter persist, however. Girls far outnumber boys in health sciences and human services, and boys dominate in areas like information technology, manufacturing, and architecture.
What about minority and low-income students?
In the past, voc ed was often a dumping ground for students who weren鈥檛 perceived as 鈥渃ollege material,鈥� which often meant low-income students and students of color. Adults in schools 鈥渢racked鈥� students into two groups: college-bound and non-college-bound. They funneled the second group into voc-ed-classes that too often led to low-paying, dead-end jobs.
Career-tech-ed has gotten much better, but its students are still disproportionately from low-income households and racial minority groups. In 2014-15, . Fifty-two percent were white, 24 percent were Hispanic, 16 percent were African-American, and only 4 percent were Asian.
Why is CTE becoming more focused on postsecondary degrees? I thought the whole point of CTE was to let students choose to skip college and go right to work.
Two big forces were central in bringing about that shift: New labor-market realities and a troubling past. Let鈥檚 take the second one first.
The 鈥渢racking鈥� we talked about earlier鈥攚here educators classified some students as 鈥渘ot college material鈥� and placed them in voc ed classes鈥攍imited students鈥� earnings and social mobility. Equity activists pressed for change, leading to a 鈥渃ollege for all鈥� movement that urged all students to attend four-year institutions.
Important changes in the labor market support the need for college, too. A shifting鈥攁nd increasingly automated鈥攅conomy offers few jobs for those without some kind of postsecondary training or degree.
Within the last decade, however, low college-completion rates led to a rethinking of the 鈥渃ollege for all鈥� movement. With only about half of college students actually completing bachelor鈥檚 degrees, policymakers began calling for a richer set of options for students who didn鈥檛 want to go the four-year-college route.
Recognizing these trends, career and technical education reshaped itself as a new kind of pathway: one that includes some form of postsecondary training. That could mean earning certification or credentials in good-paying fields like cybersecurity or robotics, or it could mean getting an associate or bachelor鈥檚 degree.
The revamping of CTE means new designs for high school programs, too. The best programs aim to keep the doors to college open by requiring rigorous college-prep classes for CTE students, while also providing them with hands-on learning that lets them apply academics to real-world problems, like designing underwater exploration devices in a marine biology program.
Does career and technical education help students finish high school? And does it influence college-going?
Statistics show that students who take two or three related courses in career-tech ed are more likely to graduate from high school on time than students in general. But they鈥檙e not more likely to enroll in college.
If career-and-technical-education students stop with only a certification or associate degree, can they earn as much money as they could with a bachelor鈥檚 degree?
Yes. But there鈥檚 an important caveat here: It depends on the student鈥檚 field of study. In some kinds of jobs, earnings are limited without a four-year degree. But in others, students with only a certification or two-year degree .
Medical technicians, for instance, can anticipate lifetime earnings of $2.2 million with only a two-year degree, according to a recent study, while .
