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How to Attract Students and Parents to CTE

Tuesday, January 25, 2022

This article was excerpted from Advance CTE’s April 2021 survey, “Communicating Career and Technical Education: Learner-centered Messages for Effective Program Recruitment.”

The last thing you want to do when communicating about CTE is to overwhelm students and parents with messages about the best path to a meaningful career. What messages actually work? Which messages are going to excite interest and lead students and parents to want to look more closely at what CTE has to offer? What makes CTE the ideal option?

Look no further than Advance CTE’s April 2021 survey, “Communicating Career and Technical Education: Learner-centered Messages for Effective Program Recruitment.” The national survey involved 2,156 parents/guardians and learners currently in or considering CTE, with an oversample of Black and Latinx families and families with low income.

The top four messages—we won’t keep you in suspense—are:

● CTE learners gain real-world skills

● CTE learners explore careers to find their passion

● CTE prepares learners for college and career success

● CTE learners make valuable connections

Let’s take a deeper dive into each message.

CTE Learners Gain Real-World Skills

In 2017, the last time this survey was conducted, this was also the top outcome message of current and prospective CTE families and learners as well as all racial, ethnic, and low-income groups. Despite changes in the economy and changes in education, this message has remained consistent over time.

In fact, both current and prospective CTE families picked this message as the most desirable outcome from among 22 other outcomes, including earning college credit, finding a well-paying job, and landing internship opportunities.

CTE Learners Explore Careers to Find Their Passion

The survey asked families to rank different aspects of education, and 45% of families across the board ranked gaining skills and exploring careers of interest ahead of sports, theater, even AP classes, and others.

Interestingly, prospective families rated exploring careers higher than gaining skills, while current CTE families reversed those two, which may indicate that skill-building is more important to current CTE families because their students are already addressing exploration.

CTE Prepares Learners for College and Career Success

These individual findings stood out:

  • 78 percent of prospective families and 85 percent of current families expect their learner to pursue some level of postsecondary education
  • More than 80 percent of current families were satisfied with opportunities to earn college credit and take advanced classes compared to 60 percent or less of prospective families.
  • Among families with low income currently participating in CTE, 55 percent planned for their learner to complete a postsecondary degree compared to 42 percent of prospective families. Among current Latinx families, the increase was even more robust, with more than 60 percent of families planning for their learner to complete a postsecondary degree compared to 36 percent of prospective families.

CTE Learners Make Valuable Connections

The “Making connections” with peers, instructors, and employers with similar interests is a strong secondary message to consider when working to recruit and retain learners who are under-represented in CTE. The preference was even stronger among current learners, which may be a helpful consideration in retaining students.

This finding reinforces CTE’s unique ability to help learners build social networks with those who are passionate about the same things they are, which is particularly valuable for populations that have been historically marginalized and discriminated from making connections that are key to career advancement.

Read the complete survey report. Or find out how to put the survey into action with “Do’s and Don’ts for Engaging Students and Parents Around CTE.”