College or the Trades: Analyzing the Perception of High School Vocational Education

As of April 5, 2022, there was almost $1.75 trillion of student debt in the US (Hahn & Tarver). The student debt crisis, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, has led many American young people to seek alternatives to 4-year colleges (Dickler, 2021). One possible alternative path is vocational education, in which a young person learns a trade like welding or cosmetology instead of or in addition to academic subjects. This can occur at the high school and/or postsecondary level. Historically, there has been a stigma against vocational education in favor of 4-year colleges (Gauthier, 2020). This study seeks to examine vocational education in American high schools. Specifically, the perception of various aspects of vocational education (perceived intelligence of vocational students, how much vocational tertiary education should be promoted over academic tertiary education, etc.) from people who were on the academic track and people who were on the vocational track in high school. These perceptions were collected via online survey of 90 American high school graduates, ranging in age from 18 to 94. Data show that the vast majority of academic track and vocational track individuals support vocational education being promoted as much or more than college prep courses in high schools. In addition, statistically significant findings include the fact that academic track students who had friends on the vocational track in high school had higher opinions of vocational track students' intelligence than academic track students who did not. Although this newfound acceptance of vocational education has many positive implications, steps must be taken to ensure that Black, Latine, and low-income students are not the only ones encouraged to take this route, but rather that all high school students receive the same level of encouragement.