– Without controlling for individual and pre-college and college context variables, family SES is not significantly related to choosing STEM major.
– Higher family SES compensates for negative predictors of STEM enrollment, such as gender and race, and strengthens the effect of positive predictors, such as math preparation.
– The gender and racial gaps in STEM enrollment narrow for students from higher SES families, and the positive correlation between math preparation and STEM enrollment strengthen with the increase of family SES, except for lowest SES students.
– Family’s immigrant background does not play a role in choice of STEM major.
– Low-SES students may not possess the information and/or skills necessary to make well-informed decisions of STEM enrollment so as to maximize their opportunity to succeed in college.
– Male students more frequently choose STEM majors than female students. The odds of men choosing STEM majors were about three times that of women.
– Asian students’ share in STEM majors is higher than their share in non-STEM majors, while the opposite holds for White and Hispanic students.
– Native English speaking students’ odds of choosing STEM major are about two-thirds of that of non-native English speaking students.
– For students who often received special privileges for good grades, the odds of choosing STEM majors in college are about two-thirds of that of those who never or rarely received such privileges.