Paying for vocational education: the marketization of inequality in collective skill formation systems

Rather unnoticed by policy-driven research, for-profit private vocational education and training (VET) providers are establishing themselves as a market niche within collective skill formation systems. In Switzerland and Germany, for example, an increasing number of students complete their vocational training at private schools that charge tuition. With tuition fees that are substantial yet significantly lower than those charged by elite private institutions, these private vocational schools target a broader student population and explicitly promise educational opportunities for those marginalized by the exclusionary logic of selective school and company-based VET systems. Drawing on narratively reconstructed case studies, this article examines students’ decision-making processes regarding fee-based vocational education in relation to the reproduction of social inequality. Paying for VET thus seems not merely an expression of school choice but rather a form of socially embedded agency within educational regimes in which vocational education is increasingly expected yet not systemically guaranteed. It thus appears to privatize and marketize existing education and social inequalities, both at the individual and the structural levels.