ABSTRACT
Occupational education is central to most community colleges. About 60 percent of all students declare they are there for occupational purposes, including an especially large fraction of part-time and older students-re-entry students returning to higher education after raising children, or dislocated workers trying to find another career after the collapse of a local industry.1 Virtually all students, even “academic” or transfer students, are there for broadly occupational purposes, as many instructors note: “They’re already somebody but they want a decent job, you know-the American dream.” Instructors note a variety of student purposestransferring to a four-year college, becoming better parents, increasing their selfesteem-but in the end their responsibility is “to help students to get a job; that’s what they’re coming here for.”And so occupational instructors often feel they have a central role within the college; as an HVAC instructor noted,
In this age of angst about our economic future and of efforts to rev up a high-skill, high-wage economy, the occupational role of community colleges is crucial.
