Abstract
Career and technical education offered at community colleges has taken on renewed importance as America’s economy tries to recover from the recession that began in 2007. Labor market projections show that middle skill jobs will be among the fastest growing categories of employment over the next decade, and because community colleges are the primary provider of trained workers for this classification they have become critical to America and California’s economic future. For California’s economy and its students to receive the full possible return from career and technical education, programs must align with local labor markets so that students are able to quickly and efficiently move from the classroom to the workforce. I collected data for student awards and program offerings from the California Community College Chancellor’s Office website to match against past occupational growth and occupational projections from California’s Economic Development Department. In order to test how well aligned CTE and local labor markets are, the data was matched for each Metropolitan Statistical Area and analyzed using an index of dissimilarity. An index of dissimilarity is a statistical tool used to calculate the difference between two percentage distributions, in this case, between job growth and awards and offerings. The result of an index of dissimilarity is a percentage representing the misalignment between CTE and local labor markets. Data on awards and offerings were analyzed separately with both job growth from 2007-2010 and future projections, giving my study four separate questions. The average index of dissimilarity across all four questions was 50.4 percent, meaning that statewide 50.4 percent of all awards and programs were misaligned with local labor markets. The four questions show great similarity in regards to the statewide averages, with a range of only 1.7 percent. Metropolitan Statistical Areas with only a single campus, as opposed to those served by multiple community colleges, had consistently higher indexes. My thesis highlights the need for further research on community colleges and their alignment with local labor markets, and provides results that are an ideal starting point for future study.