A study focused on the appropriate balance between academic and vocational education for those who intend to work rather than attend college after graduation. Two hypotheses were tested: (1) a high school curriculum that completely specializes in vocational education and ignores basic skills training will not be as effective as the one that provides both, and (2) for the non-college-bound student, vocational and academic education are complements rather than substitutes. This study used a subsample of the High School and Beyond data--students who graduated from high school in 1980 and did not attend college full time between June 1980 and February 1982. A preliminary analysis of the data was based on the cross tabulations of the three indicators of economic productivity--wage rate, number of months employed between 1980 and 1982, and earnings in 1981--by the number of vocational and academic courses taken. These tabulations suggest that vocational and academic courses may be complementary. An econometric specification of the model based on this observation allowed estimation of the degree of complementarity and the degree of decreasing returns from vocational and academic course work. Results showed that taking additional vocational courses is associated with small cutbacks in academic courses taken, but substantially high wage rates, employment, and earnings in the 18 months following graduation. It was concluded that a modest level of vocational course work produced greater benefit than total academic specialization, but taking more than three or four vocational courses sharply diminishes this benefit. (YLB)