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Tables: Secondary/High School


Table H177. Percentage distributions of public high school graduates across career and technical education (CTE) coursetaking patterns: 1992, 2004, and 2013
CTE coursetaking pattern All graduates   Graduates who earned CTE credits1  
1992   2004   2013   1992   2004   2013  
Total, all graduates 100.0   100.0   100.0   100.0   100.0   100.0  
                         
Number of CTE credits earned                        
0.00-0.99 12.1   16.1   19.3   7.1   8.3   8.2  
1.00-2.99 40.6   39.9   41.8   42.9   43.6   47.5  
3.00 or more 47.3   44.0   38.9   50.0   48.1   44.3  
                         
2-credit CTE concentrator status1                        
Non-concentrators, total 49.3   58.0   61.6   46.4   54.2   56.3  
Earned less than 2 CTE credits 32.6   36.5   41.7   28.7   30.7   33.7  
Earned at least 2 CTE credits, but fewer than                        
2 credits in any single CTE area 16.7   21.5   19.9   17.7   23.5   22.6  
Concentrators 50.7   42.0   38.4   53.6   45.8   43.7  
                         
3-credit CTE concentrator status1                        
Non-concentrators, total 73.0   78.9   80.3   71.4   76.9   77.7  
Earned less than 3 CTE credits 52.7   56.0   61.1   50.0   51.9   55.7  
Earned at least 3 CTE credits, but fewer than                        
3 credits in any single CTE area 20.2   22.9   19.3   21.4   25.0   21.9  
Concentrators 27.0   21.1   19.7   28.6   23.1   22.3  
1 CTE credits are credits in these 10 subject areas: agriculture and natural resources; business, finance, and marketing; communications and communication technologies; computer and information sciences; construction; consumer services; engineering, design, and production; health care; mechanical repair and operation; and public services.
2 The 2- and 3-credit CTE concentrators are students who earned at least 2 and at least 3 credits, respectively, in one of the 10 CTE subject areas listed in footnote 1. Graduates who concentrated in more than one CTE area were counted only once. The 2- and 3-credit non-concentrators are students who did not earn at least 2 or at least 3 credits, respectively, in one CTE area.
NOTE: Public high school graduates are defined as students who graduated from a public high school with an honors or standard diploma by August 31 of their scheduled graduation year (1992, 2004, or 2013). The table includes only graduates who had a complete grade 9–12 transcript, defined as one that recorded at least 16 Carnegie units (a Carnegie unit is a credit hour, i.e., the equivalent of a course taken every school day, one period per day, for a full school year), with a positive, nonzero number of units completed in English. Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding. See https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ctes/xls/SSCT2018.xls for the taxonomy used to define subject areas.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), Second Follow-up and High School Transcript File; Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002), First Follow-up and High School Transcript File; and High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09), Base-year, 2013 Update, and High School Transcript File.