Do Students Prioritize Majors or Specific Colleges? Analyzing the Factors That Influence Preferences in China

Congbin Guo, Mengchao Guo and Xiaowei Hao
Additional contact information
Congbin Guo: Graduate School of Education, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Mengchao Guo: Graduate School of Education, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Xiaowei Hao: Graduate School of Education, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 16, 1-15

Abstract: China’s college entrance examination has always been regarded as a system that promotes social stability and sustainable development. Students with different characteristics may have dissimilar professional aspirations. Due to the increasing popularity of higher education in China, these characteristics may constitute new influences among students’ professional priorities and educational preferences, and it is interesting to explore how such characteristics, especially family backgrounds, affect these choices. Compared to previous investigations, this study conducted a more systematic and quantitative empirical examination of family background. Accordingly, we used data obtained through a survey on higher education reform conducted by the Graduate School of Education at Peking University. Results showed that family backgrounds significantly influenced student priorities when deciding whether majors or specific colleges were most important. When deliberating over the “unpopular majors” offered at higher-level colleges/universities and the “popular majors” offered at relatively lower-level colleges, students with comparatively advantageous family backgrounds were more likely to prioritize specific colleges; that is, they were more willing to choose higher-level colleges than “popular majors” at lower-level colleges. Conversely, students with relatively disadvantaged family backgrounds were more likely to prioritize majors; that is, they were more willing to forego higher-level colleges/universities in favor of “popular majors” at relatively lower-level colleges.

Keywords: family background; choice of major; college preference; China; college entrance exam (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/9196/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/9196/ (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:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:16:p:9196-:d:615497

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().