College Selectivity, Choice of Major, and Post-College Earnings

William Brian Muse and Iryna Muse
Additional contact information
William Brian Muse: Mathematics department, Columbus State University, Columbus, USA
Iryna Muse: Assistant Vice Chancellor, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, USA

Journal of Economic Analysis, 2024, vol. 3, issue 2, 33-51

Abstract: College choice and choice of major are the most important decisions for future earnings. It is still unclear, however, what makes a greater difference—college or major—or whether a choice of college matters more for some majors, but not the others. Using cross-classified models and College Scorecard data, I show that a discipline is more consequential for future earnings than a college. The effect of STEM is substantial but is less pronounced at institutions with higher overall median earnings. The effect of college selectivity on earnings is more pronounced for non-STEM disciplines. Institutional characteristics—such as tuition, shares of graduates receiving different forms of financial aid, institutional size and location, and type of college—correlate with earnings of graduates. Racial and gender composition of an educational program correlate with expected earnings of its graduates even after control for other institutional and disciplinary characteristics. Models presented here provide a better understanding of the effect of college and major choices on future earnings.

Keywords: College outcomes; earnings of college graduates; STEM; cross-classified model; college scorecard (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.anserpress.org/journal/jea/3/2/55/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.anserpress.org/journal/jea/3/2/55 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bba:j00001:v:3:y:2024:i:2:p:33-51:d:175

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Analysis is currently edited by Ramona Wang

More articles in Journal of Economic Analysis from Anser Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ramona Wang ().