National efforts to increase college attainment and to address the nation’s skills gap have focused heavily on community colleges.  Growing awareness of the need for post-secondary training beyond traditional academic programs, combined with long-term declines in the real earnings of Americans without college degrees makes it essential to better understand the training potential of career technical (vocational) postsecondary education programs. Although the returns to BA attainment in the labor market have been well documented, there is little research on the payoff to sub-baccalaureate degree receipt, particularly in technical/vocational fields.  In this paper we address this gap and investigate the returns to sub-baccalaureate certificates and degrees in career technical (vocational) fields among those enrolled at California community colleges.