 Depth or diversity? Examining the longer run impacts of college curriculum breadthKelvin KC Seah, Jessica Pan and Poh Lin Tan Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2025, vol. 238, issue C Abstract: Existing research suggests that broad versus specialized university curricula does not significantly lead to differences in earnings and unemployment outcomes shortly after graduation. This paper builds on previous work by examining the impact of curriculum breadth on medium-term labor market outcomes, up to six years after students have graduated. Exploiting a unique episode in the history of the National University of Singapore, in which a university-wide revision in graduation requirements in 2007 prompted students in a large faculty to unexpectedly read a more specialized curriculum, we find, using a difference-in-differences approach, that while taking a more specialized curriculum does not initially affect labor earnings shortly after graduation, its effect becomes negative and increases with work experience. We find no evidence that lower earnings are due to a lower propensity to switch jobs, suggesting weaker within-firm earnings trajectories among more specialized graduates. Keywords: University curriculum; Curriculum breadth; Difference-in-differences; Earnings; Employment (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:238:y:2025:i:c:s0167268125003312 DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107212 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D. More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier |
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