New Report From Harvard University States That A Baccalaureate Degree Is Not Right For Everyone--Some Profit Better From Vocational Education

Pathways to Prosperity: Meeting the Challenge of Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century is a 52 page report from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.  In it they discuss the current challenges facing today's youth; such as more demanding labor markets, along with widening skills and opportunity gaps.  They stress the importance of a vocational education for the "forgotten half," those who will not seek or obtain a baccalaurate degree.  The Georgetown Center, for example, projects that 14 million job openings—nearly half of those that will be filled byworkers with post-secondary education—will go to people with an associate’s degree or occupational certificate.  This discussion has clear implications for both credit and OBCD vocational programs offered at the College.
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/blog/news_features_releases/2010/02/pathways-to-prosperity-seeks-to-redefine-american-education-system.html
To read the full report:
http://www.agi.harvard.edu/projects/Pathways_to_Prosperity_Feb2011.pdf

In response to the report, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan offered remarks including the following:
 The Pathways to Prosperity study envisions a new system of career and technical education that constitutes a radical departure from the vocational education of the past.
 I am not here today to endorse the specifics of your policy recommendations. I want instead to suggest two takeaway messages from your study and the Department's reform efforts.
 First, for far too long, CTE (Career and Technical Education) has been the neglected stepchild of education reform. That neglect has to stop. And second, the need to re-imagine and remake career and technical education is urgent. CTE has an enormous, if often overlooked impact on students, school systems, and our ability to prosper as a nation.
 I am admittedly impatient for reform. But patience is not called for in the face of opportunity gaps. Children get only one chance at an education. They cannot wait on reform. It is time to finish the transformation of the old vocational education system into the new CTE.
http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/new-cte-secretary-duncans-remarks-career-and-technical-education