- Males’ concentrate in technical fields over four time as much as females’ in two-year colleges and over three times as much as females’ in four-year colleges.
- There are more Blacks in technical fields in two-year colleges than other race. There are more Asians in technical fields in four-year colleges than any other race.
- Immigrant students have a higher tendency to choose business fields and technical fields in four-year universities.
- Math achievement is positively related to choosing a technical major.
- Family SES has a strong negative influence on choosing a technical major. This indicates that students from lower SES families are more likely to major in a technical major. This reaffirms the hypothesis that students from lower SES families tend to avoid risky majors and favor those majors that have relatively better job prospects.
- SES has differential effects on men and women. While men in general are equally likely to choose a lucrative college major, poor women are likely to be attracted to lucrative college majors compared to other wealthier women.
- For racial minorities and whites, higher SES is associated with a lower likelihood of choosing a technical field.
- Domain-specific parental involvement matters for children’s choice of college major.
- Lower SES children are found to favor more lucrative college majors.
- Family SES is found to have differential effects on men and women and for racial/ethnic minorities and whites.
- Parental involvement in children’s domain-specific education exerts significant effects on children’s college major choice.
- Shows that SES impacts choosing a STEM major.