Efficiency and Equity Effects of Vocationally Focused Postsecondary Education

Two rationales have been used to support governmental funding of postsecondary vocational education: an efficiency rationale and an equity rationale. Research on the effects of this public investment, and thus on the defensibility of these rationales, has often been hampered by inadequate data and other limitations. The analysis presented in this article used the nationally representative High School and Beyond data set to investigate the distinctive role of postsecondary vocational education in affecting the earnings, employment, and socioeconomic mobility of the nation's high school graduates of 1980. The results suggest that postsecondary vocational education does, indeed, have significant positive effects on individual economic outcomes, but those effects are not found among all who are targeted by the equity rationale. In particular, men from lower socioeconomic backgrounds do not appear to benefit appreciably. The analysis, however, provides striking support for the equity rationale as it applies to women.