Ohio has done an excellent job supporting high school students looking to get a jump on future careers by offering and incentivizing industry credentials through career-technical education. But a recent analysis suggests some credentials may be worth more to students than others.

The Fordham Institute looked at career clusters in which credentials are offered. Wage returns seven years after high school were measured for each. While health, business, agriculture, engineering, law/public safety, construction, transportation and manufacturing all yielded positive results; the arts, human services, education, hospitality and IT yielded negative returns. (Credentials in the arts performed worst, with a -28% wage return, while manufacturing was best with a 37% return.)

“We found no significant differences in the annual incomes of students earning a nurse’s aide or culinary certificate six years after high school compared with peers who did not attain a credential,” wrote analysts Jay Plasman and Aaron Churchill. “A few credentials, such as a cosmetology certificate, were even associated with reduced earnings after students leave high school.”

What are policymakers to do? For one thing, consider which credentials are worth incentivizing in terms of real benefit to students. No one wants to see students pursue lower paying jobs because they incorrectly believed a credential was being incentivized based on its ability to improve job prospects and earnings.

It is also important to encourage students to pursue other coursework that lends itself to better preparation for life after high school. And, of course, policy makers must do a better job evaluating the usefulness of credentials to begin with.

It’s hard to fault policymakers for trying to find new ways to support students. Now that we know more, however, it is possible to do better. There are plenty of positives to incentivizing the right credentials for students. The trick now is figuring out which ones are best for them and the state’s economy as a whole.