This White Paper on post secondary access and persistence of career and technical education (CTE) graduates, particularly those with disabilities, is produced in collaboration with the Center for Labor and Market Studies at Northeastern University. Currently, little is known about the actual post secondary enrollment of graduates from Massachusetts public high schools and less is known about the post secondary outcomes of the subset of high school graduates with disabilities. Yet, the labor market environment that these young adults will enter is one characterized by a large and growing lifetime earnings advantage to earning a college degree. The findings are based on data about nearly 4,600 high school students from the Classes of 2004 through 2006 who graduated from seven vocational-technical high schools in Massachusetts.
January 2006