A new study co-authored by Schar School of Policy and Government professor of public policy and economist Maurice Kugler takes on the very topical vocational training vs. college education debate, with a favorable conclusion for programs such as George Mason University’s ADVANCE that streamlines the pathway to a four-year degree by underrepresented students coming from community college.
The paper, published this month in The Journal of Human Resources, is called “Long-Term Educational Consequences of Vocational Training in Colombia: Impacts on Young Trainees and Their Relatives.”
“The beneficiaries of globalization are by-and-large college-educated urban dwellers,” said Kugler. “Given the uneven distribution of the gains from globalization reflected in growing inequality, it is very important to understand how access to college education can be widened.”
In the past, Kugler pointed out, vocational training and college education usually have been viewed as substitutes. The study asks, “Should we think about vocational training and formal education as competing options or just different phases of the schooling process?”
One innovative way of thinking suggests that vocational-oriented learning—such as community college—can be a pathway to four-year college that is more affordable for disadvantaged populations with limited access to education. This is the basic premise of the pioneering program ADVANCE, spearheaded by Northern Virginia Community College and Mason.
“In general, the potential positive role of vocational training in fostering further education has not been explored,” Kugler said. “Under the assumption that vocational and formal education pathways are mutually exclusive alternatives, vocational program evaluations tend to focus solely on labor market outcomes.
“We evaluate the impact of vocational training on outcomes beyond those targeted by design in the program, such as further university education—both directly for beneficiaries and indirectly for relatives in the same household.”
The main finding, he said, “is that vocational learning encourages program beneficiaries to attend colleges and universities to obtain full degrees. This evidence is consistent with the spirit of the ADVANCE program as it shows how a vocational or technical learning phase in the educational process makes university more affordable and viable for disadvantaged groups in need of college degrees to catch up in the labor market.”
The study, derived from Colombian administrative data and randomization design, was co-authored with Adriana Kugler, Juan Saavedra, and Luis Herrera. It can be read here.