Vocational education is a large part of the high school curriculum, yet we have little understanding of what drives vocational enrollment or whether these courses help or harm early careers. To address this deficiency, we develop a framework for curriculum choice, taking into account ability and preferences for academic and vocational work. We test model predictions using detailed transcript and earnings information from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1997). Our results are twofold. First, students positively sort into vocational courses, suggesting that the belief that low-ability students are funneled into vocational coursework is unlikely true. Second, we find higher earnings among students taking more upper-level vocational courses—a nearly 2 percent wage premium for each additional year, yet we find no gain from introductory vocational courses. These results suggest: (1) policies limiting students' ability to take vocational courses may not be welfare-enhancing, and (2) the benefits of vocational coursework accrue to those who focus on depth over breadth.

中文翻译：

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美国高中的职业和职业技术教育：深度而非广度的价值

职业教育是高中课程的重要组成部分，但我们对推动职业入学的因素以及这些课程是否对早期职业有所帮助或损害尚不甚了解。为了解决这一不足，我们开发了一个课程选择框架，同时考虑了学术和职业工作的能力和偏好。我们使用来自全国青年纵向调查（1997年）的详细成绩单和收入信息来测试模型预测。我们的结果是双重的。首先，学生积极地选择职业课程，这表明低能力学生被纳入职业课程的想法不太可能成立。其次，我们发现参加更多高级职业课程的学生的收入更高-每增加一年工资溢价将近2％，但是我们发现入门职业课程没有任何帮助。这些结果表明：（1）限制学生参加职业课程能力的政策可能无法提高福利；（2）职业课程工作的好处来自那些注重深度而不是广度的人。