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.

目的：本研究旨在确定社区大学生申报的专业与长期职业预测的一致性。此外，研究还探讨了这种联系是否对入门级教育敏感。方法：当前的研究合并了两个不同的国家教育和经济数据来源，形成了一个新颖的分析文件。进入公立2年制社区大学的学生样本来自初等专科生纵向研究（BPS：12/14），该研究追踪了2011-2012年至2013-2014年的学生群体。第二个数据集包含美国劳工部在2016年和2026年组织的当前和预计的就业人数。采用了一系列逻辑回归模型，控制观察到的和未观察到的国家水平因素来确定一致性。结果：社区大学生对职业和技术教育（CTE）专业的选择与劳动力市场预测之间似乎没有明确的关联。首选模型规范表明，在薪酬最高的两个CTE集群领域（信息技术[IT]和科学，技术，工程与数学[STEM]）中做出专业决策与学生所在州的预期市场增长呈负相关。贡献：社区学院特别适合提供应对当地劳动力短缺所需的CTE课程，但是从现有研究尚不清楚社区大学的学生根据这些领域的劳动力市场预测选择CTE领域的主要研究领域的程度。鉴于联邦政策要求CTE计划符合当地经济的当前和未来需求，研究人员对这些结果很感兴趣。