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College-Major Choice to College-then-Major Choice: The Heterogeneous Impacts of Late Specification Reforms on College Student Composition

This paper provides one of the first natural experimental evidence on the consequences of a transition from college-major (early specialization) to college-then-major (late specialization) choice mechanism. Specifically, we study a recent reform in China that allows college applicants to apply to a meta-major consisting of different majors and to declare a specialization late in college instead of applying to a specific major. Using administrative data over 18 years on the universe of college applicants in a Chinese province, we examine the impacts of the staggered adoption of the reform across institutions on student composition changes. We find substantial heterogeneous effects across institutions and majors despite the aggregate null effects. This paper provides important policy implications regarding college admissions mechanism designs.

Keywords
college major choice; meta-major reform; early and late specialization; student composition
Education level
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/d523-te80

EdWorkingPaper suggested citation:

Li, Xin, Liping Ma, Xiaoyang Ye, and Qiong Zhu. (). College-Major Choice to College-then-Major Choice: The Heterogeneous Impacts of Late Specification Reforms on College Student Composition. (EdWorkingPaper: 22-695). Retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University: https://doi.org/10.26300/d523-te80

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