This purpose of this study was to use occupational commitment profiles to study the vocational education of student nurses to gain new insights into their motivational patterns, performance, and retention. Three occupational commitment profile groups, based on the relative levels of the affective, continuance, and normative commitment mindsets were observed: affective dominant, moderately committed and continuance-normative dominant. These profile groups varied in terms of their motivational patterns and orientation towards a nursing career and academic performance, but did not differ with respect to persistence in nursing school. The implications of our results for building commitment to nursing during vocational training and in managing the nursing shortage were discussed.