Capturing a College Education’s Impact on Industry Wages Across Time: An Analysis of Academic Factors that Affect Earnings

Abstract

Studying how a college education can impact one’s wages has always been an area of interest amongst labor and education economists. While previous studies have stressed using single academic factors (i.e. college major choice, performance, or college prestige) to determine the effect on wages, there has not been a focus on predicting wages given industries and a combination of these academic factors across time. Therefore, the crux of my thesis seeks to provide a new model which incorporates college major choice, GPA, industry selection across time, college type (private or public), natural ability (standardized test scores), and several demographic variables in order to predict percent increase/decrease in wages. My results show that college major choice, academic performance, natural ability, and industry selection (together) do have a significant impact on earnings, and they are appropriate measures to predict post-graduation wages.