The purpose of this study was to examine patterns in high school career and technical education (CTE) coursetaking by gender and race/ethnicity across two cohorts of students over time. Using high school transcript data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002) and the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09), we examined participation in CTE both overall and disaggregated by field of study. While there were some differences by gender and race/ethnicity in overall CTE participation, disaggregating by field of study revealed wide variation in participation rates in each field. We found large and sustained differences in participation across CTE fields of study by gender as well as pronounced patterns by race/ethnicity, with some changes over time. Overall, these gender and racial/ethnic differences were notable because they persisted even after controlling for other potential explanatory factors.

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Postsecondary education is awash in data. Postsecondary institutions track data on students’ demographics, academic performance, course-taking, and financial aid, and have put these data to use, applying data analytics and data science to issues in college completion. Meanwhile, an extensive amount of higher education data are being collected outside of institutions, opening possibilities for data linkages. Newer sources of postsecondary education data could provide an even richer view of student success and improve equity. To explore this potential, this brief describes existing applications of analytics to student success, presents a framework to structure understanding of postsecondary data topics, suggests potential extensions of these data to student success, and describes practical and ethical challenges.