Massachusetts offers a variety of highly regarded career education programs to more than 80,000 high school students. The largest and most rigorous, which is offered at regional vocational schools as well at comprehensive local schools, provides almost 1,000 hours of training and prepares students to immediately enter the workforce.
This program, known as Chapter 74, serves 55,000 students or roughly one fifth of high school students across the state. Opportunities for career education are not distributed equally across the state, as the share of high school students in career/technical programs ranges from zero in Nantucket and 7 percent in Suffolk County to 40 percent in Bristol County.
Despite spending half their time on career education, students at these schools perform just as well on the MCAS and other measures of achievement as students in traditional high schools. Not surprisingly, students at these schools are more likely than their peers to move straight into the labor force after graduation, although there are also many who plan to attend college. Students from regional career/technical schools go on to earn higher income during the 10 years after high school than their peers, although the data do not allow a clear analysis of whether the schools cause higher income.
Career/vocational education is popular among students and their families, and enrollment has grown by 20 percent over the past decade. This is particularly notable because overall high school enrollment has been flat during this time, and many traditional high schools face enrollment declines. The growth understates the demand among students and their families—many career/technical programs are oversubscribed and cannot accept all the students who wish to go; in 2023–24, career/technical programs with 10,000 seats received more than 20,000 applications. The shortage of seats has been growing, and it is particularly large in Gateway cities, where half of applicants are turned away.
The positive student outcomes and unmet demand for seats indicate that the state has the opportunity to expand access to career/vocational education programs. The 2026 budget includes $100 million in grants to provide an additional 3,000 seats, which would eliminate more than a third of the current shortage. This would be an excellent start, but the state can and should do more.
Massachusetts has a career education system, also known as career vocational/technical education or CVTE, that is widely considered one of the best in the country. CVTE programs provide students with valuable skills, and provide employers with a pipeline of skilled employees. The value of career /technical education is also recognized by students and their families, and the demand for seats in CVTE programs often exceeds capacity. For many years, advocates have praised CVTE and called for expanding access to the system.
High school students in Massachusetts have multiple options for CVTE, which the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) separates into “Pathways.”
• Career Technical Education—Commonly known as Chapter 74 or C74 programs because they are governed by Chapter 74 of Massachusetts General Laws, which regulates vocational education programs. Students receive at least 900 hours of career coursework and work-based experience, and they earn credentials meant to prepare them for immediate entry into a career upon graduation.
• Career Connections—Students take two or three courses focusing on one industry, as well as a work-based learning experience. Career connections programs may also be known as N74 or Perkins programs because they are not Chapter 74 programs but are funded through federal Perkins grants.
• Innovation Career Pathways—Students take at least two courses related to continued study in an industry area, as well as at least 100 hours in an internship or work-based learning (WBL) experience. Programs focus on specific high-demand industries such as information technology, engineering, healthcare, life sciences and advanced manufacturing but do not fall under Chapter 74 or the Perkins grants.
• Early College—students take 12 or more credits of college general education courses. While DESE views career education across a continuum that offers students alternatives, the programs are quite distinctive. Early college programs benefit students, but they provide no practical job training that most people associate with “career” education. The other pathways all provide job-specific training, but at different levels. The Chapter 74 programs, which are probably what the public might think of when they think of career education or “voc/tech” schools, are significantly more rigorous than the other options. Students devote roughly half their time in school to traditional academic courses and half their time to career training—900 hours of work is the equivalent of six months of full-time experience.
This compares to only two or three courses in the career connections or innovation pathways, which can include AP or dual enrollment courses that are at best marginally related to concrete career skills. The different levels of rigor are reflected in the desired program outcomes. The main goal of the early college pathway is to earn college credit and help students make faster progress towards an eventual degree—certainly laudable, but not immediately applicable to a specific job. Both the innovation pathways and career connections pathways are meant to allow students to “explore” and “gain experience” in an industry, and to develop a post-graduation plan. This may be helpful, but students will likely require
additional training or experience to perform most jobs.
In contrast, in Chapter 74 programs students are meant to earn “high value industry recognized credentials that prepare them for immediate entry into careers upon graduation…” Students begin in an exploratory program in 9th grade to learn about the potential career training available to them, then choose a specific program to pursue for their remaining three years to build skills.
This paper provides background information about vocational education in Massachusetts, with a focus on the Career Technical Education pathway or Chapter 74 programs. It describes Chapter 74 schools, programs, and students, discusses the way the schools are financed, and explores the opportunities for expanding capacity to allow more students to participate.