College major, college coursework, and post-college wages

Light, Audrey; Schreiner, Sydney

doi:10.1016/j.econedurev.2019.101935

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 32 publications

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“…Research examining major sorting has found some role for sorting by ability but a larger role for preferences that mathematically able students have toward the subject matter of math‐intensive majors and the more lucrative occupations they are associated with (Arcidiacono, 2004; Hamermesh & Donald, 2008; Webber, 2014). Higher earnings are associated not only with major but also with coursework, indicating that skill levels and not merely credentialing effects are at work (Almasi et al., 2020; Light & Schreiner, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why college majors and selectivity matter: Major groupings, occupation specificity, and job skills

Weiss,

Spitzer,

Cronin

et al. 2024

Contemporary Economic Policy

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We provide new approaches to examining the returns to college majors and institutional selectivity. Using unique resume data, we devise new groupings of majors and use these to construct five measures that characterize majors. Applying these measures to the National Survey of College Graduates, we find that majors that lead to jobs that are math‐intensive or writing‐intensive have higher earnings and also a higher return to selectivity. Majors that are occupationally specific also have higher earnings but have a lower return to institutional selectivity. We find that the value of selectivity relative to major increases as selectivity rises.

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