Credential Without Guarantee: How Race and Gender Shape Earnings and Class Positioning of College Major

• In Event: Sociology of Education Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 18. Paths to College Major Selection

Abstract

Research on the benefits of higher education has largely focused on earnings, a loose proxy for social class
positioning—i.e., positioning that arguably better captures one’s relative social status and life chances. In this
article, we draw on microdata from the American Community Survey (ACS) 2022 5-Year estimates (n =
556,387) and interrogate the relationship between distinct college majors, divergences by background, and the
implications for both income and one’s eventual social class positioning. We analyze 15 clusters of college
major using gender-stratified linear models of logged earnings and multinomial models of Erikson–
Goldthorpe–Portocarero (EGP) class placement, emphasizing predicted differences across race/ethnicity and
field of study. Results show substantial heterogeneity in economic returns across majors: computing,
engineering, business, and physical science fields produce the largest earnings premiums, while education,
arts, and psychology/social work yield substantially lower incomes. However, class outcomes do not mirror
income patterns. Lower-paying fields, particularly education and health frequently lead to stable service-class
locations, whereas some high-earning fields do not uniformly translate into higher class positions for all
groups. Interaction analyses reveal distinct mechanisms of inequality: among men, racial differences emerge
within the same major, indicating unequal conversion of credentials into economic and class returns, while
among women, stratification occurs primarily across majors, with field choice more strongly structuring class
destinations than race. Together, these findings demonstrate that college majors operate not only as
investments generating earnings but also as institutional sorting mechanisms allocating individuals into
different social positions. By comparing income and class positioning simultaneously, the study highlights
how relying on earnings alone obscures meaningful inequalities in mobility and the stratifying role of higher
education pathways.

Authors

• Rezwanul Karim, The Ohio State University

• Vincent J. Roscigno, The Ohio State University

• Oded Mcdossi, University of Haifa