Lim, Owen, Nordin of at least some postsecondary education. Unfortunately, among OECD countries the U.S. ranked first as of 2005 in generating higher education dropouts, despite exorbitant spending on higher education compared to countries in the European Union (OECD, 2007). As a result of the substantial economic gap for non-high school graduates and the longterm, negative repercussions that may result from a large population of un- or underemployed, impoverished residents, states are seeking creative ways to encourage secondary students to stay in school longer and pursue college or technical training. Several states are expanding CTE programs and CTE dual-enrollment offerings at the secondary level and have presented preliminary findings that indicate CTE courses are of growing interest to secondary students. Moreover, the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium (2013) has posited that secondary students who concentrate in CTE programs far exceed the national AFGR and that approximately 70% of students who concentrate in CTE pursue postsecondary educational opportunities, outpacing their traditional academic counterparts—news which has piqued states’ interest. Purpose of Study In this study, we examined 4-year graduation rate data for a cohort of 15470 students in Mississippi who entered secondary public school programs in the 2007-2008 academic year and were enrolled in one or more CTE courses during their academic careers, with two primary purposes: a) to calculate by Career Cluster and Pathway the impact of CTE involvement on graduation rates for the cohort of secondary students, and b) to measure the influence of student demographics and socioeconomic status on CTE graduation rates within the cohort.
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