Participants in Subbaccalaureate Occupational Education: 2012. Stats in Brief. NCES 2018-149
Author: Zhang, Jizhi
Date: 2018-06-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Undergraduate Students,Student Participation,Associate Degrees,Student Certification,Credentials,Vocational Education,Career Education,Educational Trends,Health Sciences,Business Administration Education,Marketing,Racial Differences,White Students,African American Students,Hispanic American Students,Bachelors Degrees,Gender Differences,Education,Information Science,Age Differences,First Generation College Students,Enrollment Trends,Institutional Characteristics,Tables (Data),National Surveys

Subbaccalaureate credentials, including associate's degrees and postsecondary certificates below the bachelor's level, are a large and growing part of the postsecondary education enterprise. For example, in 2015, fully 51 percent of all undergraduate credentials were awarded at the subbaccalaureate level, up from 48 percent in 2003. Horn and Li (2009) found a 25 percent growth in subbaccalaureate credentials from 2002 to 2007, compared to an 18 percent growth rate for bachelor's degrees. Finally, Hussar and Bailey (2018) examined trends in associate's and bachelor's degrees, and found that the number of associate's degrees awarded increased 70 percent from 2001-02 to 2014-15, and was projected to increase 34 percent from 2014-15 to 2026-27, while the corresponding increases for bachelor's degrees were 47 percent and 10 percent. Most of these subbaccalaureate credentials (74 percent in 2015) are awarded in occupational, rather than in academic, fields of study, which corresponds to 38 percent of undergraduate education (Hudson 2018). Key findings of the report are: (1) In 2011-12, some 38 percent of all credential-seeking undergraduates were pursuing an associate's degree or certificate in an occupational field of study-- that is, 38 percent were subbaccalaureate occupational students as defined in this Brief; (2) Health sciences was the most common field of study pursued by subbaccalaureate occupational students (36 percent), followed by business and marketing (17 percent); (3) The majority of subbaccalaureate occupational students were White (54 percent), while Black and Hispanic students each made up 19 percent of subbaccalaureate occupational students. The percentage of Black students was larger in subbaccalaureate occupational programs than in subbaccalaureate academic programs (16 percent) or bachelor's degree programs (14 percent), and the percentage of Hispanic students was larger in subbaccalaureate occupational programs than in bachelor's degree programs (13 percent); (4) The majority of subbaccalaureate occupational students were female (60 percent), and they constituted a larger percentage of the students in these programs than in either subbaccalaureate academic programs (56 percent) or bachelor's degree programs (55 percent). However, the percentage of females in subbaccalaureate occupational programs varied by field of study, with larger percentages in service-related fields, such as education, than in more technical fields, such as computer and information sciences; (5) Subbaccalaureate occupational students were older (age 28), on average, than both subbaccalaureate academic students (age 26) and bachelor's degree students (age 25); (6) Subbaccalaureate occupational students were more often first-generation college students (48 percent) than were subbaccalaureate academic students (43 percent) or bachelor's degree students (31 percent); and (7) Subbaccalaureate occupational students most often enrolled in public 2-year institutions (65 percent), followed by for-profit institutions (20 percent).