Balancing the vocational and educational components in technical institutions today is difficult, requiring that faculty and administrators have vision, political realism, moral integrity, and energy. To understand better the rationale which underlies present forms of nonuniversity, postsecondary college education, a study was conducted at three college communities in the United Kingdom (U.K.), Canada, and the United States. In all three communities, the colleges examined were closely allied with the manufacturing sector. Faculty, students, and administrators were interviewed in 1987 on a non-random qualitiative basis, to establish thematic trends. The majority of students in all three countries identified with the values of the occupations that they would eventually enter. The greatest difference between the three groups of students was in the type of employment preferred (i.e., the U.K. students showed a preference for large organizations, while the Americans, and a sizable minority of Canadian students, showed a preference for small companies or for employment as entrepreneurs). Faculty in all three colleges experienced conflict attempting to educate in a flexible manner for a changing world while at the same time socializing students to accept future allocated work roles. In all three countries, administrators saw their task as providing an educational climate in which students could develop as people and citizens and acquire specific work skills, but administrators seemed insufficiently aware of the role conflicts which faculty faced. The main difference in the responses of chief executive officers was a greater vocational emphasis among U.K. and Canadian respondents. However, in all three countries, the general education component of vocational training was under attack except where it specifically appeared to contribute to the socialization of future employees. (38 endnotes) (JMC)