The eight-year longitudinal study was conducted by the Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) district, Buffalo, New York to determine the costs, benefits, and effectiveness of vocational education in that region. The study consisted of three phases plus a comparison with academic programs in the district. The phases included; (1) program cost analysis based on program costs and expenditures, (2) collection of effectiveness and control data through a survey of graduates from BOCES and regular high school programs, and (3) cost/benefit and cost/effectiveness analyses based on the ratio of benefits in dollars to costs in dollars. The findings include supporting tables and figures. Major conclusions are: (1) for cost analysis, comparisons between the costs per pupil and enrollment of occupation courses showed that a wide range of program costs existed within the BOCES schools; (2) for cost benefit analysis, considerable differences existed in the employment patterns of terminal students who selected BOCES occupational programs and those who did not; and (3) for cost effectiveness, higher program costs were not rewarded with economic gains and a set of strategies to increase cost effectiveness is presented. A bibliography is included and the School Record Form and Alumni Survey Form are appended. (Author/EC)