College major, college coursework, and post-college wages

Audrey Light and Sydney Schreiner

Economics of Education Review, 2019, vol. 73, issue C

Abstract: We ask whether estimated wage payoffs to college majors change when we account for skills acquired in college by including college major dummies and detailed coursework measures in log-wage models. Using data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we find that students in all majors differ considerably in the percentage of credits taken within-major, as well as in their overall credit distributions. When credit distributions are taken into account in modeling log-wages, estimated coefficients for college majors often fall by 50% or more. Moreover, estimated log-wage gaps between select pairs of majors often change by orders of magnitude depending on whether we compare individuals whose overall credit distributions correspond to obtaining a low, medium, or high level of credit concentration within the major.

Keywords: College major; College coursework; Earnings (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I23 I26 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:73:y:2019:i:c:s0272775719303784

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2019.101935

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