Academic Ability and Rates of Return to Vocational Training

EDUCATORS often decry the fact that vocational schools and vocational programs are used as "dumping grounds" for students of low ability. Practical remedies for correcting the situation are advanced less frequently, perhaps because of difficulties in finding appropriate educational alternatives for these students. The segregation of low-ability students into vocational programs is a practice so long established and widespread that suspicion arises that it may have a sounder base than snobbery or blind adherence to tradition. In economic terms, the