How Community College Students Choose Programs of Study

• In Event: What Matters for Majors: Program Choice in Higher Education

Abstract

Program choice is among the most consequential decisions students make in higher education, with important implications for completion, labor market outcomes, and social mobility. Although a large body of research examines how students at four-year institutions select majors, far less is known about how community college students make similar decisions. This gap matters because community college students make high-stakes choices under more constrained conditions, including limited advising, complex program structures, and financial pressures, all of which may restrict access to information and shape entry into higher-opportunity fields. This study examines how community college students form, revise, and act on beliefs about academic programs over time. Using linked survey and administrative data for the 2023–24 entering cohort at four community colleges in California, Maryland, Ohio, and Texas, we analyze how baseline characteristics, initial intentions, first-term performance, program beliefs, and engagement with campus resources shape program choice during students’ first year in college. We address two questions. First, which student characteristics, academic signals, and institutional supports predict whether students change their first-choice major within one year of enrollment? Second, how do students’ program-specific beliefs relate to which program they rank first at entry and one year later? To answer these questions, we first estimate models of major switching during the first year of enrollment as a function of baseline demographics, initial intentions, first-term performance, beliefs, and engagement with campus resources. We then estimate alternative-specific discrete choice models of program rankings, using within-student variation across each student’s consideration set to recover how students weigh expected success, enjoyment and fit, perceived costs, and expected labor market returns, and how those weights evolve over time. Preliminary findings suggest that students’ choices are shaped by both their initial certainty and their evolving beliefs about programs. Students who report greater certainty about their major at entry are less likely to switch over the first year, while students considering a larger number of majors are more likely to do so. Overestimating one’s expected GPA also predicts switching, particularly larger shifts across fields, whereas stronger beliefs about the likelihood of completing a program are associated with lower rates of switching. In students’ program rankings, expected returns appear to carry more weight at entry, while fit and feasibility become more salient one year later. Overall, the results are consistent with prior work in suggesting that program choice is not a one-time decision, but rather a dynamic process shaped by uncertainty, academic updating, and students’ evolving preferences and sense of fit. By focusing on community college students, this study extends existing research on major choice and sheds light on how institutional supports may promote more informed and equitable program decisions.

Author

• Rachel Barth Baker, University of Pennsylvania
  Presenting Author