Most graduates apparently find employment, although some program graduates are more successful than others in securing jobs for which they were trained. Respondents also indicate satisfaction with the job skills they acquire at college, but they consistently express dissatisfaction with the college role in paving the way for career advances beyond the first job. Survey limitations, discussed below, make it almost impossible to answer this question. They also make it very difficult to determine if community college occupational graduates have an advantage in the labor market over nongraduates or those with no formal occupational training at all. Another limiting factor is the tendency to ignore nonvocational student goals.
Many students graduating from vocational curricula undoubtedly intend to transfer.
Others may have enrolled for personal or avocational reasons that have nothing to do with employment or career advancement. Some of these graduates may be unemployed or in jobs having no relationship to their college program of study. This should not, however, be interpreted as a mark of program failure. These and other steps, such as including a control group of nongraduates or non-college attendees in the study, will require institutions and state agencies to devote more resources to research than has been the case in the past. Improved follow-up efforts will also require a fundamental change in the way student data are gathered, for most data currently collected on college students are generated through state or institutional information systems that are designed for enrollment and accounting purposes rather than for studies of persistence, performance, and student outcomes.