American college major choices: Surprising persistence

Given American higher education’s recent history of rapidly rising costs and increased political emphasis on public support of college, we believe attention to student behavior and understanding of investments in human capital are essential.  We utilize available data to meet three main objectives.  First, we demonstrate that since the 1980s American college students – both males and females – have been remarkably persistent in their choices of college major. Second, we use data on median annual earnings (for BA/BS holders – in other words, no graduate or professional schooling) to characterize the incomes that college students could reasonably expect upon their graduation.  These data – from the Digest of Education Statistics – reveal substantial and growing discrepancies between the higher-paying and lower-paying outcomes (associated with major-field specific training.)  Thus, persistence in the choice of college major is counter-intuitive, suggesting that Americans make educational choices that ignore relevant monetary incentives.  The large, consistent, and persistent monetary premiums being paid to certain majors remain even after controlling for age and sex.  If, over time there are well-known “high-paying” majors, then why isn’t the premium attracting proportionately more students into these majors? Why aren’t the major shares of these “high-paying” majors increasing?  We use two surveys (the 1993 National Survey of College Graduates and the 2003 National Survey of College Graduates) from NSF’s “The Scientists and Engineers Statistical Data System (SESTAT) to conduct our comparison of majors and to illustrate the earnings premiums (and discounts) associated with 19 categories of majors that are consistently defined in the data.  Third, we discuss some potential policy implications and allude to a behavioral model that can supplement the traditional human capital theory and improve our understanding of college major choices.