Advance to Graduate Education: The Effect of College Quality and Undergraduate Majors

Abstract

Using a nationally representative sample of baccalaureate graduates from 1993, we examine the effect of college quality and undergraduate majors on a variety of graduate education outcomes including graduate school enrollment, graduate degree attainment, and the quality of graduate programs. Other things being equal, college quality has a significant effect on graduate education. More importantly, because part of socioeconomic factors has been crystallized into academic performance and educational credentials, socioeconomic factors exert significant direct and indirect effects on graduate education.