Paper presented at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, November 5-8, 1998, Miami, FL.
Address information:
National Center for Postsecondary Improvement
University of Michigan
Room 2339 SEB
610 E. University Ave.
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1259
http://www.umich.edu/~ncpi
Long-term Effect of College Quality on the Occupational Status of Students
Eric L. Dey |
Leslie Adams Wimsatt |
Byung-Shik Rhee |
Ellen Waterson Meader |
National Center for Postsecondary Improvement Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education University of Michigan | |
Please do not quote or cite without permission.
Abstract
This study examined the influence of college quality
on the long-term occupational status of students using data from the Wisconsin
Longitudinal Study (WLS). Multiple regression analyses reveals that while
college quality does not affect long-term gains in occupational status,
educational attainment, occupational attainment, and background characteristics
are predictive. Implications of these and other findings are discussed.
Introduction
One of higher education's basic assumptions is
that college quality has profound and lasting consequences for students,
and evidence of this assumption can be seen in the activities undertaken
by the many constituencies concerned with higher and postsecondary education.
Students (and often their parents as well) invest a great deal of time,
energy, and financial resources in order to gain admission to colleges and
universities believed to offer the highest quality education. College faculty
and administrators are also concerned with quality at a number of levels,
as their professional futures are directly tied to their ability to improve
institutional and programmatic quality. Quality is also the ubiquitous concern
of federal, state, and institutional policy makers, who seek to develop
methods in order to both assure minimal standards while also attempting
to improve the quality of institutions under their purview.
Although the idea that college quality produces
long-lasting effects in the lives of students is deeply embedded in our
thinking about higher education, the existing research in this area is not
voluminous. Researchers have tended to focus their efforts on studying student
outcomes in a relatively short time span (usually at the point of institutional
departure or a few years after) as opposed to over the life course (Pascarella
and Terenzini, 1991). In addition, stubborn questions remain about the most
appropriate ways of measuring college quality. Although the "resource
and reputation" approach remains quite common, this is being critiqued
with increasing frequency and alternative approaches have been suggested
(Astin, 1985; Smith and Fiedler, 1971; Liu, 1978; Tan, 1992).
The purpose of this study is to examine whether,
and to what extent, college quality has a longitudinal impact on the occupational
status of students after controlling for students' background characteristics,
ability, and years of schooling. We also explore whether college quality
differentially effects the long-term occupational status of students when
measured at two different points in time following high school completion.
Although a number of outcomes could productively be considered, we have
concentrated on occupational status given that this is a fairly well developed
area of research, and that it is a topic that has been and continues to
be a concern of the higher education community. Using data spanning more
than three decades, this study intends to stimulate additional interest
in examining the long-term outcomes of college attendance. While many of
the important issues related to this topic will necessarily be unresolved
by this analysis, it is our goal to add to the discussion of this important
topic.
Models of Socioeconomic Attainment
The most influential models of the socioeconomic
attainment process assign formal education a central role in determining
occupational status (Alwin, 1974; Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991; Sewell
and Hauser, 1975; Trusheim and Crouse, 1981). Students and parents perceive
that individuals who attend colleges and universities are conferred distinctive
advantages in terms of economic and career advancement based on institutional
quality (Knox, Lindsay, and Kolb, 1988, 1993; Mortimer, Lorence, and Kumka,
1986; Rynes and Boudreau, 1986). Hence, the influence of college quality
on occupational outcomes remains an area of substantial research interest
(Knox, Lindsay, and Kolb, 1988, 1993; Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991).
Although various theoretical models attempt to
conceptualize how formal education, especially higher education, contributes
to an individual's socioeconomic achievements, two conceptualizations (socialization
and status conferral) prevail in the field of socioeconomic attainment (Knox,
Lindsay, and Kolb, 1993). The former posits that formal education enhances
personal productivity or development that, in turn, leads to increased occupational
status. It asserts that graduates of "better" colleges attain
greater occupational success because those colleges provide a more rigorous
or better education (Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991). In contrast, the latter
emphasizes the power of education as an institution to assign students to
new and legitimate status identities. It hypothesizes that holding a degree
from an elite college identifies a person as talented and capable of high-level
performance (Spence, 1973; Karabel and McClelland, 1983; Klitgaard, 1985).
Despite different explanations about the role of formal education, these
conceptualizations have much in common in that they eventually agree with
the importance of college education.
A large number of empirical studies show that certain measures of college quality such as academic selectivity or prestige modestly but consistently enhance educational and early occupational attainments (Astin, 1975; Ethington and Smart, 1986; James, Alsalam, Conaty and To, 1989; McClelland, 1990; Rosenbaum, 1984; Rumberger and Thomas, 1993; Smart, 1988; Solmon, 1975, 1981; Trusheim and Crouse, 1981; Useem and Karabel, 1986). The primary focus of previous studies can be classified into three categories: economic return of college education, the effect of college education on wage or salary after graduation, and the effect of college education on short-term socioeconomic status (e.g., Daniel, Black, and Smith, 1996a, 1996b; Pascarella, Smart, and Smylie, 1992; Perrucci, 1980; Sharp and Weidman, 1987; Spaeth and Greeley, 1970).
Previous Research
College quality
Review of the research literature reveals that two
general approaches have been taken to infer college quality. Some studies
of occupational status attainment have used institutional selectivity or
prestige as a measure of college quality while others have examined the
effect of institutional resources.
Selectivity (prestige).
The weight of existing evidence suggests
that certain college quality measures such as academic selectivity or prestige
modestly but consistently enhance occupational status, educational attainment,
career mobility and earnings (e.g., Astin, 1975; Ethington and Smart, 1986;
James, Alsalam, Conaty and To, 1989; McClelland, 1990; Mueller, 1988; Rosenbaum,
1984; Rumberger and Thomas, 1991; Smart, 1988; Solmon, 1973, 1975, 1981;
Trusheim and Crouse, 1981; Useem and Karabel, 1986). For example, Alwin
(1974) used the WLS 1957 base year and 1964 follow-up survey data to estimate
the effects of college on the occupational status of 1,198 men seven years
after high school graduation. Institutional prestige was measured using
Astin Estimated Selectivity Scores along with other traditional resource
measures of college quality. Using multiple regression analyses, Alwin found
that institutional size and prestige were superior in accounting for variance
in occupational status.
In later research, Useem and Karabel (1986) studied
managerial careers within 208 large corporations and, controlling for social
origins and post-baccalaureate training, found that graduating from an elite
institution was predictive of occupational status attainment. In this study,
all of the corporate managerial positions examined required a college degree
for employment. It was concluded that in situations where similar credentials
are required for employment, where one attends college may be the most salient
factor with regard to occupational status attainment.
Studies employing the National Opinion Research
Center 1968 follow-up of 1961 college graduates (Spaeth and Greeley, 1970;
Perrucci, 1980) and the 1979 follow-up of the NLS-72 sample (Sharp andWeidman,
1987) also reported statistically significant and positive effects of college
selectivity on subsequent job prestige. Similar results are reported by
Knox, Lindsay, and Kolb (1988, 1993), who used the 1986 follow-up of the
NLS-72 data, and Karabel and McClelland (1987) who used a national sample
of men who were twenty to sixty-four years old in 1973. In most cases, however,
the standardized regression coefficient estimating the net influence of
college selectivity on occupational status was quite small (less than .11
in magnitude for most analyses). The study with the largest effect (Karabel
and McClelland, 1987) failed to control for individual ability or occupational
aspirations.
Tinto (1980, 1981) analyzed the 1968 follow-up
of a national sample of white males who graduated from college in 1961 and
who were broadly dichotomized into professional and business/managerial
careers. He hypothesized that non-trivial differences exist in the degree
to which college quality influences the process of status attainment in
various occupations. Because professional occupations are characterized
by the centrality of intellectual skills and knowledge requirements that
are typically acquired in formal educational settings such as college or
graduate school. Although Tinto controlled for background characteristics
and college selectivity, he did not control for precollege occupational
aspirations, intellectual ability, or educational attainment. The findings
of this study suggest that the impact of institutional selectivity on occupational
status attainment varies by career.
Smart's (1986) research on occupational status
attainment used data from the 1971 and 1980 Cooperative Institutional Research
Program (CIRP) surveys to derive a final analysis sample of college graduates.
This sample was based on attendance at a single undergraduate institution
and full-time employment status in 1980. Smart pooled the results for men
and women by coding gender as a dummy variable. He performed separate analyses
for those in professional (2,069 individuals) and non-professional (1,380
individuals) occupations in response to Tinto's (1980) concern regarding
a segmented labor market. After controlling for precollege occupational
aspirations, race, and secondary school achievement as well as family socioeconomic
status, he found that undergraduate college selectivity had no statistically
significant direct influence on early occupational status (Duncan SEI) in
either professional or managerial careers nine years after college enrollment.
For professional careers, however, college selectivity did exert a statistically
significant positive indirect effect on occupational prestige through its
strong impact on educational attainment.
The Smart (1986) and Tinto (1980, 1981) studies are at least indirectly reinforced by evidence which indicates that attending a selective or prestigious undergraduate institution modestly enhances academic success in professional schools such as law and medicine (e.g., Clapp and Reid, 1976; Evans, Jones, Wortman, and Jackson, 1975; Pugh, 1969) and the successful implementation of careers in education (Long, Allison, and McGinnis, 1979), engineering and scientific research (Astin, 1977) and medicine (Pascarella, Brier, Smart, and Herzog, 1987). However, college selectivity was also directly predictive of early career status for women in a study conducted by Braxton, Brier, Herzog, and Pascarella (1990) which examined data from the 1971 and 1980 CIRP surveys and HEGIS institutional data files to determine the influence of student entry characteristics, college characteristics, and academic/college experiences on the probability of entering a high status legal profession.
Institutional resources. Some studies of occupational status attainment have used
institutional resources as a measure of college quality, but such measures
are more commonly examined in research on wages and earnings where quality
of faculty (e.g., proportion holding doctoral degrees) and fiscal resources
(e.g., library expenditures) have often been used as proxies for quality
of education (Cohn and Geske, 1990; Daniere and Mechling, 1970; Psacharopoulos,
1987; Weisbrod and Karpoff, 1968). Within the higher education literature,
several recent studies provide integrated frameworks for investigating the
effects of college quality on occupational status attainment. This research
considers measures of both institutional resources and selectivity
in order to determine the influence of college quality on student outcomes
(e.g., earnings).1
Historically, researchers have cautioned that resource
measures are often highly inter- correlated (James et al, 1989; Morgan
and Duncan, 1979; Solmon, 1975). Recently, this collinearity was exploited
by Daniel, Black, and Smith (1996a, 1996b) who constructed several college
quality indices to measure the effect of college quality on early career
attainments. In their initial study (1996a), they conducted research on
a group of 3,100 men using ten variables (tuition, spending per student,
faculty/student ratio, enrollment, rejection rate, retention rate, graduation
rate, high school ranking of students, number of faculty with Ph.D.'s, and
average SAT scores/percentiles).
In a subsequent study of 3,000 women (Daniel, Black,
and Smith, 1996b), they examined the effect of six college quality variables
to measure career attainments (spending per student, faculty/student ratio,
rejection rate, average SAT scores, high school ranking of students). Both
studies used data from three sources to estimate quality effects from wage
regressions: 1) the National Survey of Youth (NLSY), a panel data set based
on annual surveys of individuals 14-21 years old; 2) the Integrated Postsecondary
Education Data System (IPEDS) for 1990; and, 3) U.S. News and World Report's
Directory of Colleges and Universities (1991). Of the five subsamples
that comprise the NLSY, only the representative cross-section and the minority
oversamples were used. Regression analyses controlled for factors such as
previous labor market experiences, family and other background characteristics,
high school quality, and industry of employment.
As to both men and women, Daniel, Black, and Smith (1996a) found that attendance at a higher quality college increased wages although the evidence was less robust for women. As to women, they found that institutional control (private versus public) predicted subsequent wage levels.
Related Literature
In addition to college quality, three general categories of past research have been shown to affect occupational status attainment and are important to take into account: 1) inputs such as student background characteristics; 2) college measures, including institutional characteristics and choice of college majors; and, 3) educational attainments.
Inputs.
Unraveling the effects of student background
characteristics such as gender, family socioeconomic status, academic/intellectual
ability, secondary school achievement, and occupational aspirations on subsequent
occupational success is difficult. Therefore, some college quality studies
have controlled for these variables when examining occupational status.
With regard to gender, some studies have found
that college-educated women actually begin their work lives in higher-status
jobs than men, but then lose this advantage by mid-life (Sewell, Hauser,
and Wolf, 1980). Sewell, Hauser, and Wolf (1980) used data from the Wisconsin
Longitudinal Study (WLS) and 1975 follow-up surveys to examine high school
graduates' occupational status seventeen years after high school completion.
Using the Duncan Socioeconomic Index (Duncan SEI) as a measure of occupational
status, they were able to determine that status attainment for a first job
averaged ten points higher for women than for men. Interestingly, these
effects were not evident when occupational status was subsequently examined
using the 1974-75 employment data.
Pascarella and Terenzini (1991) suggest that family
socioeconomic factors such as the educational attainment of parents influence
key intervening steps in the status attainment process (e.g., family income,
aspirations, educational attainment), all of which can have an important
impact on eventual occupational status. Research findings in this area have
been somewhat inconsistent. A study by Jencks et al (1979) concluded
that occupational status varies according to both family socioeconomic standing
and academic/intellectual abilities. However, Alexander and Eckland (1975)
did not find these factors to be predictive.
Substantial evidence does support the claim that occupational aspirations at the beginning of college strongly predict senior year career choice and career entry following college (Astin, 1977; Astin and Myint, 1971; Braxton, Brier, Herzog, and Pascarella, 1990; Ethington, Smart, and Pascarella, 1987; Pascarella, Brier, Smart, and Herzog, 1987; Tusin and Pascarella, 1985). Braxton, Brier, Herzog, and Pascarella (1990) used data from the 1971 and 1980 Cooperative Institutional Research Program and examined a sample of 4,784 undergraduate men and women to estimate the effects of several student entry characteristics, college characteristics, and college experiences on occupational outcomes. The final analysis sample included only students who were first-time, full-time freshmen at four-year institutions in 1971 and who attended a single institution as undergraduates. Student data was merged with institutional information from the Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS) to conduct the analysis. With the exception of precollege aspirations, results showed that few entry characteristics directly influenced the early occupational status attainments of these students.
Although precollege aspirations were predictive in this study, it is well-recognized that students often change their occupational plans during college (Astin, 1977; Astin and Paos, 1969; Davis, 1965; Feldman and Newcomb, 1969; Fenske and Scott, 1973; Hind and Wirth, 1969; Theophilides, Terenzini, and Lorang, 1984). Thus, an investigation of the long-term impact of career aspirations on occupational status attainment is warranted.
College measures.
Another research area has examined how
institutional characteristics (e.g., institutional control, institutional
size, highest degree offered) and educational experiences (college major)
affect the occupational status outcomes of graduates. Extant research supports
the general conclusion that when precollege student background characteristics
are controlled, features of institutions attended by college students and
their academic activities within those institutions often have only a slight
impact on subsequent attainment measures (Alwin, 1974; Jencks, 1972; Sewell
and Hauser, 1975; Treiman and Terrell, 1975; Trusheim and Crouse, 1981).
Knox, Lindsay, and Kolb (1988, 1993) analyzed data
from the 1986 follow-up to the National Longitudinal Study of the High School
Class of 1972 (NLS) to determine the long-term effects of attending college
on occupational status. Net of such salient characteristics as size and
selectivity, these researchers found that attending a private institution
significantly enhanced occupational status (as measured by the Duncan Socioeconomic
Index). In examining the effects of size on occupational status, Knox, Lindsay
and Kolb again controlled for precollege traits (e.g., socioeconomic status,
academic/intellectual ability, occupational aspirations), institutional
characteristics (e.g., private/public control), and college quality (prestige/selectivity).
Institutional size was shown to have a statistically significant but small
positive effect on the occupational status of the 2,702 men and women included
in this analysis.
Sharp and Weidman (1987) analyzed the same general
data as Knox, Lindsay, and Kolb, but selected the 1979 NLS survey follow-up
to examine individuals nine years after entering college as freshmen. They
also confined their analysis to B.A. recipients from the following academic
fields: humanities, social sciences, business, and education. Controlling
for essentially the same precollege and institutional characteristics as
Knox, Lindsay, and Kolb, Sharp and Weidman found that attending a private
institution actually had a statistically significant negative influence
on the early occupational status of men. However, the corresponding effect
for women was not statistically significant.
Using the 1971 and 1980 Cooperative Institutional
Research Program (CIRP) survey data, Smart (1986) studied the effects of
family socioeconomic status and educational attainment on occupational status
attainment. He selected a sample of individuals who had attended a single
undergraduate institution and who were employed full-time in 1980. These
restrictions yielded a final sample of 3,449 respondents with complete information
on all of the variable constructs included in the analyses: precollege characteristics,
undergraduate institutional characteristics, college achievement and experiences,
educational attainment level, first job, and current job. Smart also controlled
for essentially the same individual and institutional characteristics as
Knox, Lindsay, and Kolb (1988, 1993), but found that attending a private
college or university primarily enhanced the occupational status of individuals
entering business or managerial careers. While his analysis yielded generally
similar results at each point in time for those in business/managerial fields,
the results did not hold for those employed in fields defined by the U.S.
Bureau of the Census as "professional." Also, after controlling
for precollege traits such as socioeconomic status, occupational aspirations,
academic ability and institutional characteristics such as selectivity,
and private/public control, Smart found that institutional size had a statistically
significant but small positive effect on occupational status attainment.
It is also interesting to consider the findings
of Astin and Panos (1969) and Astin (1977) who examined successive iterations
of a national sample of college students drawn from the Cooperative Institutional
Research Program (CIRP) to determine the effects of institutional characteristics
on college student behaviors. From these studies, several discoveries were
made regarding the effect of institutional characteristics on occupational
status selection. Astin (1977) found that while attendance at public four-year
institutions significantly enhanced the likelihood of students becoming
college teachers or engineers, it reduced the likelihood that they would
enter careers in business, law, medicine, or nursing. Astin and Panos (1969)
controlled for a large battery of student precollege characteristics and
college prestige measures, but found no statistically significant net link
between institutional size and students' choice of relatively high status
careers in law, medicine, engineering, or the ministry.
Kamens (1971) analyzed data on students from 99
institutions who were followed from their freshman through junior years
of college. Contrary to Astin and Panos (1969), Kamens found that students
who attended large colleges were significantly more likely than students
who attended small colleges to choose careers higher in occupational status
(e.g., law, medicine, engineering). His analysis statistically controlled
for freshman occupational choice, gender, academic ability, and a measure
of the "prestige" of the institution attended. In a subsequent
analyses of a national sample of college students, Kamens (1979) discovered
that the presence of a graduate or professional degree program at an institution
affected occupational choices made by students.
Although the research results are mixed, size appears
to be the most consistently predictive institutional characteristic. Meyer
(1970) and Kamens (1971) have reasoned that larger institutions, by virtue
of the greater number of majors and pre-professional programs offered, typically
have a wider range of links with occupational and economic groups in society.
The relationship between undergraduate college
experiences (e.g., experiences within the academic major) and occupational
status attainment has been the focus of several research studies. Pascarella
and Terenzini (1991) have hypothesized it is likely that elite institutions
enroll students with high occupational status aspirations in comparison
with other types of institutions and that, for students attending selective
or prestigious institutions, the undergraduate experience is used more to
implement than to choose a career.
While it has long been recognized that the earnings
of college graduates are affected substantially by the choice of a college
major (Berger, 1988; James et al, 1989; Rumberger, 1984), evidence
concerning the influence of academic major on occupational status is fraught
with inconsistencies. Thomas and Gordon (1983) analyzed the 1979 follow-up
of the NLS-72 data. After controlling for gender, race, socioeconomic status,
academic ability, educational and occupational aspirations, college grades,
and educational attainment, majoring in natural science and technical fields
(compared with such majors as education and social sciences) had a statistically
significant positive direct effect on occupational status (as measured by
the Duncan Socioeconomic Index) for women but not for men. This finding
was generally replicated in another sample by Harvey and Kalwa (1983) and
similar results were reported for women by Stoecker, Pascarella and Wolfle
(1988). Smart (1986) found that majoring in the natural sciences had a statistically
significant negative influence on early occupational status for both professional
and non-professional careers.
Angle, Steiber, and Wissman (1980) investigated
the early status attainment of a national sample of men and women who worked
full-time. Controlling for age, sex, race, a measure of family socioeconomic
status, and educational attainment, these investigators found that college
academic major increased the explained variance in occupational status less
than one percent. Business majors had jobs with the highest status score
(Duncan SEI), followed by majors in education, social sciences, and the
humanities. Jobs with the lowest prestige were held by natural science majors
and those majoring in fields not included in the other categories.
Sharp and Weidman (1987) examined data from the
1979 follow-up of the NLS-72 study. Their research revealed that majoring
in business, education, or the humanities (versus the social sciences) had
positive effects on the job status of women, while men's job status was
positively affected by majoring in business, education, or the social sciences
(versus the humanities). Unfortunately, no controls appear to have been
made for important precollege variables such as occupational aspirations,
academic achievement, and ability.
Wilson and Smith-Lovin (1983) used a multidimensional
scaling of majors based on the extent to which they were "targeted"
toward prestige, authority (extent of supervision over others), or income
and analyzed data from the 1968 follow-up of a national sample of 1961 college
graduates. Majors were scaled using a two-step process: 1) prestige levels
were projected based on existing information about the national occupational
status structure (e.g., U.S. census data); and, 2) a state employment security
commission assisted with matching ninety-seven college majors with likely
employment outcomes. This provided occupationally-linked distinctions among
majors within broad categories. Subsequently, each of the three dimensions
of academic major were shown to have statistically significant net direct
effects on occupational status, as measured by the Duncan SEI.
Several researchers (e.g., Solmon, 1981) have also noted that certain fields of study (e.g., business, engineering, technical or professional) tend to have a closer fit with the skills required in one's first job than do others (e.g., arts, humanities, social sciences). As an individual's career progresses, specific skills learned in a major field of study appear to decline in importance and to be replaced by more general intellectual skills and ability to learn on the job (Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991).
Educational attainment.
An extensive body of evidence indicates
that even when individual background characteristics and abilities are held
constant, level of formal education has a strong positive impact on occupational
status throughout the life span. Moreover, the clear weight of this evidence
suggests that among all measurable influences (family status, ability, aspirations,
significant others), education is the strongest predictor (Alexander and
Eckland, 1975; Alexander, Eckland, and Griffin, 1975; Duncan, 1968; Featherman
and Carter, 1976; Fligstein and Wolf, 1978; Griffin and Kalleberg, 1981;
Jencks, Crouse, and Mueser, 1983; McClendon, 1976; Porter, 1974, 1976; Sewell,
Hauser, and Ohlendorf, 1970; Sewell, Haller, and Portes, 1969; Sewell and
Hauser, 1975, 1980; Treiman and Terrell, 1975). Further, earning a
bachelor's degree may count for more in terms of job status than where
one earns it (Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991).
Jencks et al (1979) analyzed data from five
national and six special-purpose samples of men twenty-five to sixty-four
years old to identify the factors that influenced occupational status. Their
sample included both college goers and non-goers. They found that the effect
of educational attainment on occupational status was strongest for those
individuals in early career stages and that the relationship between educational
attainment and occupational status was nonlinear - the bachelor's degree
yielded the largest rate of return (Jencks et al, 1979). After controlling
for background characteristics such as ability/intellectual levels
and family socioeconomic status, they discovered that occupational status
was 34 percentile points higher for men with a bachelor's degree as opposed
to those with less than a bachelor's degree. This equates to approximately
five Duncan SEI points over and above the composite SEI increase one would
obtain for four years of college without completing a degree. Interestingly,
educational attainment was most predictive of early occupational
status attainment.
After controlling for race, gender, family socioeconomic
status, and academic ability, Knox, Lindsay, and Kolb (1993) found that
obtaining an advanced degree returns occupational status advantages beyond
the bachelor's degree that are about two-thirds of what a bachelor's degree
returns in comparison with a high school diploma. However, some differential
effects may have been masked in this study because all advanced degrees
were pooled into a single category (Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991). Other
researchers (e.g., Harvey and Kalwa, 1983; Spaeth, 1977) have explored the
relationship between graduate education and occupational status and found
that men experience higher early occupational returns than women. Not all
research evidence supports this finding. For example, Wilson and Smith-Lovin
(1983) have shown that the occupational returns on graduate education are
about the same for each gender.
Summary
The existing research literature has successfully
demonstrated that college quality has some influence on occupational status
attainment, yet it suffers from several limitations. First, the majority
of research regarding the effect of college quality has focused on early
career success as an outcome of college quality rather than on how institutional
quality factors influence occupational status attainments over an extended
time period following high school graduation (e.g., Angle, Steiber, and
Wissman, 1980; Solmon, 1981; Thomas and Gordon, 1983). Second, many studies
have been hampered due to use of only a single measure of institutional
quality (e.g., Karabel and McClelland, 1987; Mueller, 1988). Third, much
of this literature focuses on males, thus ignoring important gender differences
in the impact of college quality (e.g., Daniel, Black, and Smith, 1995a;
James et al, 1989; Karabel and McClelland, 1987; Wachtel, 1976).
Finally, most of the existing literature uses very limited models to estimate
the effects of college quality by only focusing on elite institutions, or
by failing to control for career-salient background characteristics of students
(e.g., Kingston and Lewis, 1990; Sharp and Weidman, 1987).
The present study attempts to address each of these limitations. First, we use longitudinal survey data to study individuals seventeen and thirty-five years after high school graduation. Second, college quality is measured using both traditional institutional resource measures and academic selectivity (prestige) to determine their effect on occupational status. Third, it examines both men and women in the analyses. Fourth, it uses a robust model that includes background characteristics, institutional characteristics, college major, degree attainment, and previous occupational status attainment to predict occupational status. Specifically, the study addresses the following research questions: 1) whether college quality affects the occupational status of graduates after controlling for background characteristics, ability, and years of schooling; and, 2) to what extent college quality influences long-term occupational outcomes.
Research Framework and Hypotheses
Figure 1 provides an overview of the concepts and
variables used in our analyses to estimate the influence of college quality
based on institutional resources and academic selectivity on socioeconomic
attainments. In addition to measures of college quality, the model also
includes measures of student background characteristics, characteristics
of the college attended, college major, and measures of educational and
occupational attainments. It is important to recognize that each of the
variables within this framework can either help to increase the level of
occupational status, or can reduce or mitigate against such attainment.The
combined effects may influence to what extent college students increase
their occupational status over time.
The model is longitudinal and is based on the assumption
that attendance at an undergraduate institution is influenced by student
background factors. In turn, it is anticipated that student background characteristics
and characteristics of the undergraduate institution attended (including
the quality of the institution) will influence students' college experiences
(academic majors) and educational achievements (highest degrees earned).
Finally, it is hypothesized that socioeconomic attainments (occupational
status) will be influenced by all preceding variables in the conceptual
model (Alwin, 1974; Blau and Duncan, 1967; Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991;
Sewell and Hauser, 1975). While we acknowledge that the effect of college
quality on occupational status attainment may be mediated by a variety of
outcomes resulting from college attendance (e.g., cognitive and psychosocial
development), examination of such factors falls beyond the scope of this
study.
Research Framework for College
Effects on Occupational Status:
A longitudinal analysis
| 1957: HS graduates |
1957-1975 and 1957-1993 |
1974-75 and 1992-93 | ||
Background: Input
|
 |
College Environment:
|
|
Socio-economic Achievement: Outcomes
|
Figure 1. Research framework: determinants of occupational
status
Methodology
Data and Sample
Data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS)
of 1957 high school seniors were used for our research. The WLS data were
selected from a one-third probability sample of 10,317 seniors who graduated
from Wisconsin high schools during the 1957 academic year. Survey data were
collected from the original respondents or their parents in 1957, 1964,
1975, and 1992 and selected siblings in 1977 and 1993. These data provide
a full record of social background, youthful aspirations, schooling, and
labor market experiences. The survey data from earlier years have been supplemented
by mental ability tests, measures of school performance, and information
regarding school and college contexts, employers, and industries. This information
comes from a variety of sources including a 1957 high school administered
questionnaire (see Little, 1958), high school records, Wisconsin State Testing
service records, and follow-up questionnaire surveys (Sewell and Hauser,
1993).
Specifically, our final analysis sample consists of men and women who attended college, earned a postsecondary degree, and were employed at the time of the survey follow-up. This sample is primarily derived from two sources: 1) the 1974-75 WLS follow-up survey (1,754 individuals); and 2) the 1992-1993 WLS follow-up survey (1,900 individuals). However, we also used the WLS base year data to determine student background characteristics.
Variables
The dependent variable for this study is occupational
status, a hierarchy of occupations that reflect perceived prestige or desirability
as ranked by Siegel (NORC) Prestige Scores (Duncan, 1961; Hauser and Featherman,
1977; Pineo and Porter, 1967; Siegel, 1971). Occupational status provides
a useful estimate of the relative social standing of the respondents' most
recent jobs in comparison with the rankings of other jobs. Hence, we can
estimate the extent to which occupational standing can be attributed to
higher education (Knox, Lindsay, and Kolb, 1988, 1993).
The Siegel (NORC) Prestige Scores are based on
subjective rankings to establish the standing of a large number of occupations
(Miller, 1991)2 and were selected to measure occupational status in our
study for several reasons: 1) although socioeconomic indicators such as
the Duncan SEI and the Siegel (NORC) Prestige Scores reflect approximately
equivalent prestige and socioeconomic status for most occupations, for a
substantial number they do not (Miller, 1991); 2) the Siegel (NORC) Prestige
Scores are particularly responsive to non-socioeconomic occupational dimensions
such as education (Hauser and Featherman, 1977); 3) prestige as a major
occupational reward is a relatively good indicator of occupational status
attainment (Hauser and Featherman, 1977; Treiman, 1977); and, 4) while socioeconomic
factors are the main determinants of prestige, prestige is determined by
other factors as well (Treiman, 1977).
The nineteen predictor variables for the multiple
regression analyses were selected to assess constructs in the research framework.
The independent variables in the regression model include background characteristics
(gender, socioeconomic status, academic/intellectual ability, high school
rank, occupational aspirations), institutional characteristics (control,
highest degree offered, undergraduate enrollment, college quality measures),
college major (engineering, business, education, health, science/math, social
sciences, humanities), educational attainment (highest degree earned), and
previous occupational status. College quality is measured using both traditional
institutional resource measures (faculty compensation, number of faculty
with Ph.D.'s, library expenditures, and number of library volumes owned)
and measures of academic selectivity or prestige. We created two composite
measures of college quality to avoid multicollinearity of variables in the
regression model. College majors were coded as a series of dummy variables.
A residual category which primarily consisted of vocationally-oriented areas
constituted the dummy variable. The predictor variables were recoded as
shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Definitions and Recodes of Predictor Variables
| Background Characteristics | |
| 1. Gender | Respondent's gender. Coded 0= male, 1= female. |
| 2. Socioeconomic Status in 1957 | Factor-weighted combination of parents' education, father's occupation and average parental income created from father's years of schooling, Duncan's Socioeconomic Index Score for father's 1957 occupation, and average parental income with estimates for missing data. Coded lowest to highest. |
| 3. Academic/Intellectual Ability | Henmon-Nelson Test of Mental Ability Scoresin 11th grade.3 Coded lowest to highest. |
| 4. High School Rank | High school grades percentile rank. Calculated as 100 minus rank class/number of students x 100. Coded lowest to highest. |
| 5. Occupational Aspiration | Respondent's intended occupational prestige (NORC Scores) in 1957 for the occupation the student hoped to eventually enter. Coded lowest to highest. |
| Institutional Characteristics | |
| 6. Private Control | Controlling body. Coded 0= public, 1= private. |
| 7. Highest Degree Offered | Highest degree level offered at institution. Coded 1= two-year school, 2= B.A. or first professional degree, 3= M.A. or second professional degree, 4= Ph.D. or equivalent. |
| 8. Undergraduate Enrollment | Total undergraduate enrollment at institution. Coded lowest to highest. |
| 9. Institutional Resources | Factor-weighted combination of average faculty salary, number of faculty with Ph.D.'s, number of library volumes, and library expenditures. Used as a measure of college quality. Coded lowest to highest (alpha = .95). |
| 10. Institutional Prestige | Composite institutional variable comprised of the Astin Intellectualism Score and Astin Selectivity Score. Astin Intellectualism standardized scores reflect percentage of students seeking Ph.D.'s, median high school grade point average, percentage with scientific occupational choices. Astin Selectivity standardized scores reflect the ratio of the number of high ability students who want to enroll to the total number of freshman admitted. Used as a measure of college quality. Coded lowest to highest (alpha = .86). |
| College Major4 | |
| 11. Engineering | Major field of study or specialty at the college/university where respondant earned a bachelor's degree or its equivalent. Coded 0=else, 1=college major (as listed) |
| 12. Business | |
| 13. Education | |
| 14. Health | |
| 15. Science/Math | |
| 16. Social Science | |
| Educatoinal Attainment | |
| 18. Highest Degree Earned | Level of highest degree earned since high school. Coded 1=associate, 2=bachelor's, 3=master's, 4=doctorate or professional degree |
| Previous Ocupational Status | |
| 19. Occupational Status in 1974 | NORC/Siegel Score for the longest job held in 1974. Coded lowest to highest. |
Analyses
Demographic data (means and standard deviations)
and separate multiple regression analyses were conducted for respondents
by survey year (1974-75, 1992-93) in order to study the contribution of
various background characteristics, institutional contexts, academic majors,
educational attainments, and previous work experience upon the occupational
status of respondents.
Due to the number of variables in the analyses, we selected OLS multiple regression analysis as our primary analytic method. Based on the research framework, we developed a regression equation model as follows:
Socioeconomic status = f (gender, SES, HS achievement,
mental ability, occupational
aspirations, college quality, institutional context,
college major, degree attainment)
All independent variables in the multiple regression
analysis were meansubstituted then force-entered in hierarchical blocks
using the following sequence: background characteristics, institutional
characteristics, academic majors, educational attainments, previous occupational
status. Because gender, social class origins, and academic abilities affect
where students go to college, what they study, and how long they stay in
school, these relationships make it more difficult to isolate the effects
of educational credentials, college characteristics, and student experiences.
Therefore, we have controlled for the influence of these background factors
in our analyses of college quality.
Limitations
Before considering the implications of these results,
it is important to underscore the limitations of this study. First, we must
recognize that occupational status represents but one of many possible outcomes
of college that can be affected by institutional quality. College has a
broad range of enduring outcomes, including changes in attitudes and values
as well as cognitive, moral, and psychosocial growth and development. Also,
although a variety of general cognitive skills develop during college, the
effects of these competencies are not well understood (Berg, 1970; Jencks
et al, 1979). It may be that attitudes, values, interpersonal/organizational
skills,
and levels of motivation or self-confidence have greater
appeal to some employers than cognitive or technical skills in terms of
potential for long-term occupational success and productivity (e.g., Becker,
1964; Collins, 1974; Hicks, Koller, and Tellett-Royce, 1984).
Second, this study was limited in terms of the
diversity of the population available for our secondary data analyses. For
example, the WLS data are restricted to a single cohort passing through
postsecondary education at a similar point in time. Therefore, results may
not be generalizable to more recent cohorts and to older populations of
students. In addition, because only a small percentage of racial and ethnic
minority groups were living in Wisconsin at the time of the original data
collection, the WLS minority sample was too small to justify analysis (Sewell
and Hauser, 1993).
Third, in terms of the coverage and quality of
variables, the inclusion of additional control or occupation-relevant variables
would have enriched our analyses. Although the available measures were more
than adequate for our study, we would like to have had access to more detailed
information regarding aspects of the college environment such as student
achievements, faculty/student interaction patterns, and participation in
extra-curricular activities (e.g., Weidman, 1984). Further, the WLS base
year survey asked a limited number of questions regarding occupational skills
and training such as whether individuals were employed in occupations where
a college degree was required, or in occupations that were significantly
related to their college training.5
A final caveat with regard to coverage and quality
of variables is that our analyses was limited by several missing cases in
the WLS institutional characteristics subset (see discussion, Symonette,
1981, p.150). However, we were careful to select institutional variables
that had the least amount of missing data for our analyses (e.g., institutional
control, highest degree offered, undergraduate enrollment, number of library
volumes, library expenditures).
We are aware that some scholars argue it is misleading
to assume that the process of occupational status attainment exists within
an undifferentiated labor market (e.g., Kalleberg and Sorensen, 1979; Tinto,
1980, 1981). There may exist, in fact, a segmented labor market in which
the salient factors that influence occupational status vary for different
occupations or careers (e.g.,
Crane, 1969; Hargens, 1969; Perrucci and Perrucci,
1970; Tinto, 1981; Zuckerman, 1977) or in which labor markets may vary from
community to community (Grubb, 1992). However, we feel that these concerns
are outweighed since we know of no other data set that offers such a full
record with which to explore the longitudinal effects of college quality
on individual occupational status changes.
Finally, the broad groupings of academic majors used in this study (engineering, business, education, health, science/math, social sciences, humanities) may disguise important differences in occupational linkages that happen to fall within majors (see discussion, Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991). However, these traditional groupings provide a good measure of college experiences likely to have an impact on long-term occupational status and that can be relatively easily compared with previous research findings.
Results
Descriptive statistics were calculated for each of the variables included in this study and are listed in Table 2. Means and standard deviations for the independent variables illustrate that the majority of college-goers in our study were men who attended public universities (see Table 2). The size of the undergraduate population at these institutions appears to have varied widely, although average enrollment was slightly more than 6,000 students. While education majors represent the largest group of academic majors in our study, those in health-related fields constitute the smallest group. Finally, it is interesting to note that the average level of educational attainment was slightly more than that of a bachelor's degree.
Table 2. Means and Standard Deviations for Predictor Variables, Over Time a
1974 (N=1754) |
1992
(N=1900) | |||
| Mean | Standard Deviation | Mean | Standard Deviation | |
| Gender | .318 | .466 | .388 | .488 |
| Socioeconomic Status 1957 | 23.173 | 13.329 | 23.431 | 13.499 |
| Ability Measure | 71.580 | 23.027 | 72.143 | 22.677 |
| High School Rank | 69.764 | 23.255 | 71.089 | 22.705 |
| Occupational Aspiration | 77.456 | 7.652 | 77.378 | 7.328 |
| Private Control | .379 | .470 | .381 | .466 |
| Highest Degree Offered | 3.484 | 1.819 | 3.457 | 1.771 |
| Undergraduate Enrollment | 6221.559 | 5815.415 | 6159.501 | 5734.134 |
| Institutional Resources | 1.002 | 3.229 | .899 | 3.156 |
| Institutional Prestige | .116 | 1.579 | .120 | 1.567 |
| Engineering | .109 | .312 | .103 | .304 |
| Business | .105 | .307 | .095 | .294 |
| Education | .222 | .416 | .246 | .431 |
| Health | .049 | .216 | .058 | .234 |
| Science/Math | .125 | .331 | .119 | .324 |
| Social Science | .131 | .337 | .124 | .330 |
| Humanities | .139 | .346 | .140 | .347 |
| Highest Degree Earned | 2.479 | .680 | 2.442 | .661 |
| 1974 Occupational Statusb | 558.169 | 115.762 | 558.700 | 105.099 |
| 1992 Occupational Statusc | 552.692 | 120.928 | ||
Tables 3 and 4 contain the results of the stepwise regression analyses with occupational status in 1974 and 1992 serving as the dependent variables. In order to show unusual effects outside of the last block of the model, regression results include statistics from each step of the regression equation. Standardized coefficients are provided to facilitate discussion.
Table 3. Predictors of 1974-75 Occupational Status Attainment (N=1754)
| Variable | Block 1 | Block 2 | Block 3 | Block 4 |
| Gender | -.160**** | -.158**** | -.177**** | -.056** |
| Socioeconomic Status in 1957 | .013 | .013 | .019 | -. 000 |
| Academic Ability | .031 | .032 | .037 | .011 |
| High School Rank | .074*** | .074*** | .051* | .002 |
| Occupational Aspiration | .127**** | .129**** | .117**** | .083**** |
| Private Control | -.026 | -.018 | -.025 | |
| Highest Degree Offered | .018 | .016 | .017 | |
| Undergraduate Enrollment | -.079* | -.061 | -.069 | |
| Institutional Resources | .033 | .031 | .019 | |
| Institutional Prestige | .033 | .023 | .013 | |
| Engineering | .055* | .100**** | ||
| Business | -.040 | .002 | ||
| Education | .083** | .039 | ||
| Health | .090**** | .063** | ||
| Science/Math | .111**** | .069** | ||
| Social Science | .040 | .026 | ||
| Humanities | .070** | .039 | ||
| Highest Degree Earned | .377**** | |||
| R = | .06 (.056) | .06 (.058) | .08 | .20 |
A slightly different set of variables were predictive
of occupational status in 1974 than were predictive of occupational status
in 1992, with student background characteristics such as gender and occupational
aspirations playing a much greater role in 1974 status attainment. While
academic ability had a significant effect on occupational status in 1992,
a greater variety of college majors influenced occupational status in 1974.
Degree attainment and prior occupational status by far accounted for the
majority of the variance in both regression models. Overall, the regressions
accounted for slightly less of the variance in the dependent variable for
occupational status in 1974 ( R = .20) than for occupational status in 1992
( R = .21).
Table 4. Predictors of 1992-93 Occupational Status Attainment (N=1900)
| Variable | Block 1 | Block 2 | Block 3 | Block 4 | Block 5 |
| Gender | -.130**** | -.125**** | -.165**** | -.037 | -.028 |
| Socioeconomic Status in 1957 | -.019 | -.028 | -.025 | -.031 | -.031 |
| Academic Ability | .072*** | .069*** | .076*** | .052** | .048** |
| High School Rank | .036 | .036 | .013 | -.034 | -.034 |
| Occupational Aspiration | .082**** | .080**** | .075*** | .045* | .023 |
| Private Control | .049 | .060 | -.051 | .056 | |
| Highest Degree Offered | -.006 | -.012 | -.005 | -.009 | |
| Undergraduate Enrollment | .001 | .016 | .002 | .020 | |
| Institutional Resources | .015 | .011 | .002 | -.002 | |
| Institutional Prestige | .002 | -.007 | -.015 | -.019 | |
| Engineering | .045 | .087*** | .061** | ||
| Business | -.046 | -.005 | -.001 | ||
| Education | .093*** | .064*** | .052 | ||
| Health | .132**** | .110 | .089**** | ||
| Science/Math | .087*** | .060** | .042 | ||
| Social Science | .019 | .018 | .017 | ||
| Humanities | .054* | .030 | .025 | ||
| Highest Degree Earned | .317**** | .213**** | |||
| Occupational Status 1974 | .295**** | ||||
| R = | .04 (.036) | .04 (.038) | .06 | .14 | .21 |
There is some indication that students enrolled
in larger institutions (as measured by undergraduate enrollment numbers)
were less likely to achieve a higher level of occupational status in 1974
than students enrolled in smaller institutions, but this result does not
hold after controlling for other confounding variables such as college major
and educational attainments. Two key measures of college quality, institutional
resources (average faculty salary, number of faculty with Ph.D.'s, number
of library volumes, and library expenditures) and prestige (institutional
selectivity) did not effect long-term gains in occupational status. In sum,
institutional characteristics examined in this study generally exerted no
appreciable direct effect on status attainment.
The findings also revealed that students' majors
in college effected long-term occupational status attainments. While majoring
in engineering and health positively predicted 1974 and 1992 occupational
attainment levels, majoring in science/math effected only 1974 occupational
attainments. It is interesting to note that before controlling for educational
and occupational attainments, other college majors also entered the regressions:
education and humanities (1974-75); education and science/math (1992-93).
Finally, it appears that degree attainment and
work experiences following high school overrode most other factors in determining
occupational status. However, it is interesting to note that 1974 occupational
status attainment was predicted by four measures of background and institutional
characteristics prior to the entry of college majors (gender, high school
rank, occupational aspirations, undergraduate enrollment). And, of these
four, three background characteristics remained predictive until the last
step of the regression. High school rank, education major, and humanities
major were positive predictors in the third step of the equation, but not
after educational attainment was added in the final step of the regression.
A similar pattern held in our examination of 1992 occupational status levels.
Background characteristics such as gender and occupational aspirations were
initially predictive, but did not remain so through the fifth step of the
regression.
In sum, college quality had no direct effect on occupational status as measured in this study. Rather, our findings suggest that the most significant factor influencing the occupational status (or prestige) of students was educational attainment. Controlling for students' academic achievement, socioeconomic status, and intellectual ability, students in this study who graduated from college with degrees in engineering and health tended to consistently hold more prestigious jobs. Students who graduated from college with degrees in science/math attained relatively high levels of occupational status seventeen years after high school graduation, but this effect was no longer evident when measured in terms of 1992-93 occupational status attainment (thirty-five years after high school graduation).
Discussion
The goal of this study was to examine whether,
and to what extent, college quality has a considerable longitudinal impact
on the occupational status of students after controlling for students' background
characteristics and ability. This study extends previous research by examining
the effects of college quality on occupational status attainments seventeen
and thirty-five years after high school completion. The results indicate
that while college quality does not appear to substantially influence students'
long-term occupational success (e.g., Gruca and Pascarella, 1988; Karabel
and McClelland, 1987), the strongest influence is simply their level of
educational attainment. For individuals in our study, increased educational
attainment led to increased occupational status. Therefore, this study supports
the conclusion that earning a college degree is more important for occupational
success than attending a prestigious college (Pascarella and Terenzini,
1991). Further, the regression results support socialization or human capital
theory to the extent that college major and degree attainment resulted in
the acquisition of skills necessary for occupational success.
These results have several practical implications.
First, because degree completion is strongly related to occupational status
attainment, administrators should examine ways to broaden access to higher
education (for example, through financial aid incentives). Institutions
should also explicitly recognize and attempt to deal with issues of student
retention by providing a wide variety of support services (e.g., academic
tutoring, counseling). Such initiatives are especially crucial given continuing
changes in the enrollment patterns of groups not traditionally represented
in higher education (e.g., women, minorities) or in particular fields of
study (e.g., engineering).
In our study, occupational status remained relatively
constant for most students seventeen and thirty-five years after high school,
although the factors predicting occupational status appeared to change over
time. Interestingly, the occupational status of respondents in 1974 was
affected by the widest range of background, institutional, and educational
variables. This suggests that personal and occupational factors may influence
status attainment in different ways at different points in time, or that
different factors (e.g., job training, professional achievements, seniority,
number of job changes in the career, working in an area not related to college
major) effect occupational status later in life. Because previous occupational
status appears to have long-term effects, serious consideration should be
given to providing students with adequate career counseling during college
and perhaps prior to graduation from high school.
It is interesting that majoring in engineering
or health contributed to higher occupational status both seventeen and thirty-five
years after high school completion. Students majoring in science/math also
ranked high in occupational status (Thomas and Gordon, 1983), but only when
examined seventeen years after high school. Admittedly, the labor market
changed dramatically during the time period in which our study was conducted
-- rapid expansion in health care fields and within various industries possibly
contributed to our findings, or perhaps majoring in certain subjects in
college facilitated "networking" opportunities that were necessary
for obtaining higher status occupations.
Another explanation is that skills learned in certain
fields of study more closely fit with the skills required in a first job
than did skills learned in other academic areas. For example, as an individual's
career progressed, perhaps the specific skills that students learned in
science/math declined in importance and were replaced by more general intellectual
skills, or by an ability to learn on the job (Pascarella and Terenzini,
1991; Solmon, 1981). Yet another consideration is that typical categories
of academic majors (humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, etc.)
may provide inadequate measures of academic experiences in college. Future
research should examine how multidimensional scaling of college majors could
advance theory in this area (Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991; Wilson and
Smith-Lovin, 1983). In addition, if adequate institutional policies and
practices regarding mentoring, job placement, and career "networking"
are to be made, more research will be needed to determine how occupational
status outcomes are differentially affected by students' academic majors
while in college.
We also found that student background characteristics
such as gender, career aspirations, and academic ability had an impact on
long-term occupational status attainments. In particular, the effects of
gender and occupational aspirations on job status appeared to lessen over
the life course rather than increase (Sewell, Hauser, and Wolf, 1980). While
we found no evidence of the influence of family socioeconomic status on
occupational attainment (Alexander and Eckland, 1975; Alwin, 1974; McClelland,
1986), job status was negatively affected by gender and positively affected
by academic ability and occupational aspirations (Braxton, Brier, Herzog,
and Pascarella, 1990; Ethington, Smart, and Pascarella, 1987; Jencks et
al, 1979). However, the effect of these factors on status attainment
appeared to differ for graduates when measured at two points in time following
high school graduation. Further research is need in order to clarify the
nature of these relationships.
Given that college quality can be measured in many
ways, studies of several dimensions of the occupational status attainment
process should also be undertaken. In terms of possible avenues for future
research, an expansion of the number and nature of college quality measures
is in order. For example, institution-level measures of college quality
could be expanded to include commitment to curricular reform/innovation,
implementation of assessment policies and practices (e.g., measurement of
student outcomes), documentation of faculty practices, and evaluation of
the college climate (institutional and departmental). The effects of such
measures on student outcomes (e.g., occupational status) would be particularly
informative given the impending shortages in certain academic fields (e.g.,
education, engineering).
Another particularly interesting way to examine college quality would be through an examination of learning outcomes that focus on student persistence levels, cognitive and psychosocial development, and both academic and social integration (e.g., faculty/student interaction levels, participation in extra-curricular activities). Such measures could help provide a more accurate picture of how postsecondary educational experiences impact student outcomes. Further, it is important that researchers specifically investigate how career-salient characteristics of students (values, attitudes, aspirations, college achievements) affect occupational outcomes as well as the extent to which job training affects long-term status attainments (Baird, 1985).
Conclusions
Existing theory suggests that background and institutional characteristics as well as educational attainments can influence the early occupational status of college students. However, the extent to which these factors remain predictive across extended periods of time following high school graduation has not been well-understood. This study provides a preliminary examination of how such characteristics influence the occupational status attainments of students seventeen and thirty-five years after their completion of high school.
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Appendix
Table A. College Majors Recoded by Major Constructs
| Major Construct | Survey Code # |
College Major |
| Engineering | 179 | Aeronautics |
| 190 | Aviation management | |
| 056 | Engineering, College of | |
| 031 | Engineering-chemical | |
| 034 | Engineering-civil and environmental | |
| 054 | Engineering-electrical and computer | |
| 081 | Engineering-industrial, industrial design | |
| 095 | Engineering-mechanical | |
| 103 | Engineering-metallurgical and mineral | |
| Business | 001 | Accounting - Finance |
| 030 | Business, School of (Business) (For "Business education" or Business and Teaching code Teaching) | |
| Education | 020 | Art education |
| 044 | Curriculum and instruction | |
| 050 | Education, School of, Teaching | |
| 055 | Elementary education | |
| 109 | Music education | |
| 130 | Physical education - men | |
| 131 | Physical education - women | |
| 152 | Secondary education | |
| 042 | Continuing and vocational education | |
| Health | 037 | Communicative disorders, speech correction, speech therapy |
| 097 | Medical microbiology | |
| 099 | Medical sciences | |
| 100 | Medical technology, X-ray technician (For non-college code 691) | |
| 101 | Medicine (MEDICINE plus one or more code 143 - Pre-medicine) | |
| 114 | Nursing, School of (For non-college use 564 or for practical nursing 601.) | |
| 116 | Occupational therapy | |
| 119 | Optometry | |
| 126 | Pharmacy | |
| 128 | Pharmacy, School of | |
| 169 | Physical therapy | |
| 141 | Pre-dentistry (DENTISTRY plus one or more, else code 047) | |
| 143 | Pre-medicine (MEDICINE plus one or more, else code 101) | |
| 147 | Radiology | |
| 079 | Health administration and hospital administration | |
| 166 | Veterinary science | |
| Math/Science | 023 | Bacteriology |
| 025 | Biochemistry | |
| 026 | Biology | |
| 028 | Botany | |
| 032 | Chemistry | |
| 039 | Computer sciences | |
| 059 | Entomology | |
| 066 | Geology and geophysics | |
| 093 | Mathematics | |
| 104 | Meteorology | |
| 097 | Microbiology | |
| 132 | Physics | |
| 134 | Physiology | |
| 171 | Science, nfs | |
| 160 | Statistics | |
| 168 | Zoology | |
| Social Science | 017 | Anthropology |
| 049 | Economics | |
| 065 | Geography | |
| 176 | International relations, diplomatic or foreign service | |
| 138 | Political science, government | |
| 146 | Psychology | |
| 155 | Social work | |
| 156 | Sociology | |
| Humanities | 035 | Classics |
| 036 | Communication arts, speech | |
| 063 | French | |
| 072 | History | |
| 058 | Humanities, English | |
| 084 | Italian | |
| 087 | Latin | |
| 089 | Letters and Science, College of | |
| 090 | Liberal studies, liberal arts (Liberal Arts) | |
| 092 | Linguistics | |
| 129 | Philosophy | |
| 150 | Russian | |
| 159 | Spanish | |
| 164 | Theology, ministers, priests (If PLNS58 does not equal 2-6, EDMJ57 was coded 712. This would include many religious schools.) | |
| Other | 004 | Agricultural and extension education |
| 005 | Agricultural and life sciences, College of | |
| 006 | Agricultural economics | |
| 007 | Agricultural engineering | |
| 010 | Agronomy | |
| 012 | Air, military, and naval science | |
| 013 | American institutions | |
| 094 | Animal and meat science | |
| 016 | Animal husbandry | |
| 018 | Architecture | |
| 019 | Art, Department of | |
| 024 | Behavioral disabilities | |
| 040 | Conservation | |
| 045 | Dairy science | |
| 060 | Family resources and consumer sciences, School of | |
| 172 | Fine Arts | |
| 061 | Food science | |
| 062 | Forestry | |
| 076 | Home economics education and extension | |
| 077 | Home management and family living (Home Economics) | |
| 078 | Horticulture | |
| 080 | Industrial education, industrial arts | |
| 081 | Industrial engineering, industrial design | |
| 082 | Industrial relations | |
| 148 | Interior decorating, related art | |
| 085 | Journalism and mass communication | |
| 086 | Landscape architecture | |
| 088 | Law, School of (LAW plus one or more code 142 - Pre-Law) | |
| 091 | Library science | |
| 105 | Military science | |
| 108 | Music - performing | |
| 107 | Music, nfs | |
| 110 | Naval science | |
| 142 | Pre-law (LAW plus one or more, else code 088) | |
| 157 | Soil science | |
| 162 | Textiles, clothing, fashion | |
| 163 | Theater, drama, acting | |
| 165 | Urban and regional planning |
Note: 300-733 = Non-college majors coded
as "missing."