Career and technical education, also known as vocational education, focuses on the “career” side of “college and career readiness.” CTE fields include manufacturing, health science, electrical engineering, construction, cosmetology, and more.
The goal of CTE programs is to ensure students are “work ready” by the time they graduate from high school, while also mastering academic content. Some of the best CTE initiatives strive to blend career training and academic coursework seamlessly.
Some CTE programs are elective courses offered at traditional high schools. Others programs are contained within specialized, and often regional, CTE high schools, which students may attend while still enrolled in traditional courses at “home” high schools. Career academies offer students yet another CTE pathway. While popular in other countries, few American students participate in youth apprenticeships, which require working and learning on a job site.
Some CTE students enter the workforce with no additional training. However, many students enroll in a two- or four-year higher education program to further their studies.
Students may earn Industry Recognized Credentials as part of CTE. These are credentials conferred by businesses, industry groups, or state certifying entities to individuals who demonstrate a sufficient level of knowledge and skills in a particular domain, often through one or more assessments. Unfortunately, some of the most popular IRCs, such as certifications in workplace safety or Microsoft Office, don’t help students earn more in the labor market.
In the past, CTE was seen by some as a “dead-end” pathway, but the high school graduation rate for participants in modern CTE programs is around 90%, 15 points higher than the national average, and students who take at least three CTE courses are more likely to enroll in college, and earn more as adults as well.
Fordham’s View
CTE programs allow students to learn skills that will help them prepare for stable careers and success in a modern, global, and competitive economy. Not all high school students are college-bound, nor should we expect them to be. For these students, CTE provides a pathway to dignified work and respectable salaries. CTE programs are also efficient and affordable: many programs are completed in under a year and at no cost to the student. Therefore, a robust, rigorous high school experience should include quality CTE programs. But if we really want to help students gain momentum toward a promising career while still in high school, we need to embrace youth apprenticeships as well—and that will require policy changes to high school course requirements and state funding systems.
Learn More
- Association for Career and Technical Education
- Advance CTE
- Federal Perkins Career and Technical Education Act
- How Attaining Industry-Recognized Credentials in High School Shapes Education and Employment Outcomes
- On the importance of pathways in CTE
- “The upside of the downward trend in college enrollment”
- Podcast: “Whether industry-recognized credentials benefit high schoolers”