Abstract: I investigate Uganda's 2007 Universal Secondary Education (USE) policy, which abolished tuition and registration fees in public and selected private secondary schools. By using birth-cohort and district variation in the roll-out of the program, I find that the program successfully increased the transition rate from primary to secondary education and the completion of lower secondary education. No effects are to be found for upper secondary education. Furthermore, exposure to the program leads to a reduction of unemployment and shifted employment towards skilled work. However, most of the gains are to be found among private schools participating in the program fueling the debate, whether the public sector should solely be responsible for delivering secondary education in low-income countries.