This review paper discusses the implications of the California Statewide Longitudinal Study (SLS) of community college students for 2-year vocational education. After introductory material examining problems in vocational student follow-up, the paper presents relevant findings from the SLS, discusses their significance for vocational education, and makes recommendations for future administrative action and further research. The paper highlights the ability of the SLS to define accurately student functions through the use of student prototypes, and the findings that students relate more to courses and skills than to programs; that, for the majority of vocational students, their studies were related to their jobs; and that, in terms of prototypes, the majority of "program completers" were day students, the majority of "job upgraders" and "career changers" were evening students, and the category of "job seekers" was more evenly split between day and evening students. Among the major recommendations were that: (1) SLS special population data should be compared with similar data collected by individual colleges; (2) the SLS follow-up should be continued with added emphasis given to comparisons among vocational, technical, and special interest students; (3) data on "transfer/tech" and "leisure vocational skills" students should be computed separately from other vocational categories; and (4) programs should be modified to meet the needs of identified student prototypes. (HB)