Study reveals impact of wealth on academic choice

Despite the University’s Major Choices initiative — launched in 2004 to encourage students to choose their concentration based on their academic passions and not their future career aspirations — students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to take post-graduation employment opportunities into account in declaring their major, according to the recently released Committee on Background and Opportunity (COMBO) survey results.

Though 30 percent of self-identified lower-class students said that “expected financial prospects” was a significant factor when choosing a major, only 12 percent of upper-class students responded the same way.

Moreover, nearly a third of all students in each socioeconomic category cited “finding a job” as a significant factor for their selection of major, except for those who identified as upper class, of which only 22 percent said “finding a job” significantly influenced their choice.

On the whole, however, 80 percent of respondents across all socioeconomic backgrounds cited “academic passion” and “interesting classes” as reasons for choosing their major.

Five-year data from the Career Survey Report, in which Career Services polled graduating classes from 2004 to 2008 about their post-graduation plans, show that the average starting salary for a computer-science graduate was $67,000, while the average comparative-literature graduate earned a salary of about $37,000. These figures do not take inflation into account.

Though the COMBO survey asked students to list their major or prospective major, the report released by the USG and prepared by Vice Provost for Institutional Research Jed Marsh did not correlate the respondents’ major choices to their self-identified socioeconomic backgrounds.

Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel defended Major Choices’ mission to boost numbers in smaller departments despite the findings of the COMBO survey and the Career Services report.

“Everything I know confirms that a good, solid liberal arts education in ANY discipline provides strong preparation for a wide range of successful, remunerative careers,” she said in an e-mail, adding that the University expects to continue emphasizing choosing a major based on academic interests, not career prospects.

Accounting for books

The role of money in students’ academic options at the University is not limited to major choices. Financial constraints have a resounding effect on students’ ability to purchase course materials, the COMBO survey shows.

Two-thirds of students from lower- and lower-middle-class families indicated that cost prevented them from purchasing required course materials. Overall, roughly three-quarters of lower- and lower-middle-class students did not buy books, compared to 36 percent of upper-class students.

Malkiel did not outline any specific initiatives to address the disparity but noted that the process is ongoing.

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Last April, former USG president Rob Biederman ’08 presented select findings of the COMBO survey to a meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Community, recommending that the University put more course books on reserve and that professors employ less costly alternatives to Pequod packets.

In an interview with The Daily Princetonian in May, Malkiel said that she could not be certain of when these recommendations regarding course books would be acted on, though she said that they would be taken “seriously.”

She explained Monday that the University will be working with Firestone to better utilize the reserve collection, adding that the University may re-evaluate the financial burden of textbooks.

“[Our] efforts include collecting information on required readings for all courses so that we can see how actual textbook costs compared to projections used by our financial aid office,” she said.

“By the end of the fall semester we expect to have a much clearer sense as to how we might proceed,” she explained, adding that the Office of the Dean of the College, OIT, Labyrinth and the USG will have discussions to “better understand the problem.”

USG academics chair Ben Lund ’10 said that the USG has plans to raise this issue with the Financial Aid Office and encourage them to reconsider the size of the discretionary spending budget included in financial aid packages.

While he commended the University’s financial aid program, he said that the office may not be fully aware of the variation of cost among majors.

“For different majors ... books cost different amounts,” he noted.

He added that USG undergraduate life chair Arthur Levy ’10 and class senators are leading an initiative to find alternatives to Labyrinth for textbook purchases.

“[The USG has] been talking about asking the departments for the textbook lists early so kids can shop around on [amazon.com],” Lund explained.

In an interview with the ‘Prince’ in February, Labyrinth co-owner Dorothea von Moltke said that independent booksellers simply cannot afford to compete with internet giants like Amazon because bookstores cannot offset the low profit margins of textbooks by selling other merchandise.

“There is a reason why the U-Store isn’t doing course books anymore. It’s not something that you can economically sustain,” she said.