Community College Career and Technical Education and Labor Market Projections: A National Study of Alignment

Abstract

Objective: This study sought to determine how aligned community college students’ declared majors were with long-term occupational projections. In addition, the study explored whether this link was sensitive to entry-level education. Method: The current study merged two disparate sources of national education and economic data to form a novel analytic file. The sample of students who attended public, 2-year community colleges were obtained from the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:12/14), which tracked a cohort of students from 2011–2012 through 2013–2014. The second data set featured current and projected jobs numbers organized by the U.S. Department of Labor for the years 2016 and 2026. A series of logistic regression models controlling for both observed and unobserved state-level factors were employed to determine alignment. Results: There did not seem to be a clear correlation between community college students’ choice of career and technical education (CTE) major and labor market projections. Preferred model specifications indicated the decisions to major in the two most remunerative CTE cluster areas (information technology [IT] and Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math [STEM]) were negatively associated with projected market growth in a student’s home state. Contributions: Community colleges are particularly suited to provide the CTE coursework needed to respond to local labor shortages, yet it is not clear from existing research to what degree community college students choose major areas of study in CTE fields based on labor market projections in those fields. These results are of interest to researchers in light of federal policy requiring CTE programs match the current and future needs of local economies.