The following series of essays has been assembled to examine the determinants and implications surrounding the choice of undergraduate major. Other studies have analyzed various aspects of the decision making process associated with the choice of college major, however, many questions remain unanswered. These questions include: (1) How does the probability of receiving a job offer and expected earnings that incorporate risk affect a student’s choice of major at a selective university? (2) What are some of the implications that the choice of major has upon other college decisions such as borrowing behavior? (3) What affect does choosing a second major have upon a student’s earnings? (4) How do the answers to these questions change when describing the choices of men and women? These essays are an attempt to address these shortcomings in previous research in this area.

There have been several studies that model the college student’s choice of major as a utility maximizing decision that is primarily based upon the relative expected earnings that are correlated with different majors. One problem with these studies is that few incorporate the fact that students face various forms and degrees of uncertainty and risk in their choice of major. Motivated by this shortfall, this first essay models a student’s choice of major as being determined primarily by a student’s relative expected earnings. Students’ choice of major at a selective university is shown to be positively correlated to relative expected earnings adjusted for earnings uncertainty or risk. Students at this selective university are less motivated by another form of uncertainty inherent in the choice of major, the probability of receiving job offers across majors.

Once a student has chosen a major, this choice may have particular importance in other decisions that a student makes while in college. The second essay takes an alternative look at the relationship between a student’s choice of major and the amount of loan debt they choose to accumulate during college. Based on a life-cycle model of consumption and borrowing, this essay suggests that a student’s choice of major could influence the level of debt that a student will take on. This study finds that some students in higher earnings majors do tend to have higher total debt levels. The endogenous nature of major choice and loan debt is also addressed.

The final essay explores an aspect of the choice of college major that has previously been ignored. While the earnings implications of a student’s primary major have been the focus of several empirical studies, little attention has been paid to the earnings implications of a student’s choice of a second major. This essay empirically tests whether students from a selective university actually receive some type of monetary return to investing in a second major. Results show that some students do benefit from choosing to obtain a second major.