Community College Program Choices in the Wake of Local Job Losses

Deciding which field to study is one of the most consequential decisions college students make, but research on topic focuses attending 4-year colleges. To understand how community colleges make field-of-study decisions, I link administrative educational records recent high school graduates with local mass layoff and plant-closing announcements. find that declines in employment deter from entering closely related programs instead induce them enroll other vocationally oriented programs. Students predominantly shift enrollment between lead occupations requiring similar skills.