With the military's requirements for high-quality recruits expected to increase over the next decade, a study was conducted to evaluate the recruiting potential of two-year post-secondary institutions. Specifically, the study sought to ascertain the characteristics of two-year colleges, whether sufficient numbers of potential recruits existed in these institutions for fruitful recruitment, the degree to which these students met enlistment standards, the penetrability of the market, the value of previous recruits, and research needed for the development of successful recruitment policies. A review of the literature on higher education and military recruiting from this market, as well as analyses of data from the Defense Manpower Data Center and from three large-scale surveys of youth, revealed that: (1) over 1 million male two-year college students were estimated to fall within recruitment ages; (2) this market had not been substantially penetrated, as less than 4% of all 1981 recruits without prior military experience had 1 or 2 years of college, and less than 1% of the two-year college class of 1981 were considering a military career option; (3) the instability of two-year college students' educational and career goals indicated that with the right recruitment incentives and strategies the market could be penetrated; and (4) recruits with prior college experience had lower attrition rates than non-college recruits. Recommendations for further study are included. (DAB)