Do Innovative Career Pathways in Massachusetts High Schools Promote Equitable Access to Higher Education?

Two persistent shortcomings of the American labor market are the wage gaps and unequal unemployment rates that exist between racial groups. More specifically, Black and Latinx high school graduates earn less and are more likely to be unemployed than their White counterparts, on average. Likewise, students from low-income families are much more likely to be low-income themselves in adulthood. One of the ways Massachusetts seeks to address this is by offering Innovation Career Pathways, optional career and technical education (CTE) programs within traditional public high schools that are attended by students from historically disadvantaged backgrounds, to grant them access to preparation for in demand careers through technical courses and hands-on learning experiences. In addition to being conducive to economic opportunity directly by promoting career readiness, literature suggests that CTE programs may also do so indirectly by having a positive effect on educational attainment, which has a positive relationship with employment as well as earnings. This study investigates the effects of participation in the Massachusetts Innovation Career Pathways (ICP) on college readiness, college enrollment, and college persistence of racial minority and low-income students using Inverse Probability of Treatment Weighting, as determined by propensity scores. Given the findings that program participation has positive effects on college enrollment and persistence across racial and economic groups, increased recruitment of Black, Latinx, and low-income students into the program may be a way to promote equitable access to higher education in the state of Massachusetts.