Although there is a discourse among politicians, school leaders, and teachers that students in vocational education and training (VET) programmes in upper secondary school are less motivated than students in higher education preparatory (HEP) programmes there are few large-scale studies comparing differences and similarities within and between these two groups of students. The aim of this study was to investigate and problematize differences in goal orientation and subject specific interest between students entering VET and HEP programmes. The study is based on questionnaire responses from 4262 students in last year of lower secondary school and administrative data on which upper secondary school program these students graduated from. Initial analysis showed that, as a group, students later entering VET programmes embrace motivational goals to a lesser extent and found most subjects less interesting than students later entering HEP programmes. However more nuanced analysis gave reasons to problematize the colloquial meaning of motivation and to the question the dichotomic division of programmes into VET and HEP.