A Reassessment of Technical Education in Mexico

Using propensity score matching, this paper re-evaluates the labor market performance of graduates of CONALEP, Mexico's largest technical education system. CONALEP serves students from a lower socio-economic status at the upper-secondary school level in Mexico. The manuscript shows that individuals in the control group find jobs faster than CONALEP graduates do, but a higher proportion of the CONALEP graduates work in the occupational category congruent with their field of specialization or training. CONALEP graduates earn between 20 to 28% higher wages than the control group. The results indicate that employers invest more in training CONALEP graduates than they invest in the control group. Finally, a cost-benefit analysis appears to show that CONALEP is an effective system.