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Published
2023-05-04
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Feature Articles
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Copyright (c) 2023 Phillip Morris, Moraima Castro-Faix, Kristen Hengtgen, Kelly Rapp, Christa Winkler, Tonghui Xu
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Copyright of all articles published in JCOTR belong to the author(s) and are published under a CC BY-NC license.
How to Cite
Virtues of Academic Exploration:
Impact of Major Changes on Degree Completion
Phillip Morris
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
Moraima Castro-Faix
Rutgers University
Kristen Hengtgen
Florida College Access Network
Kelly Rapp
Christa Winkler
Tonghui Xu
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24926/jcotr.v30i1.4904
Keywords: academic majors, persistence, graduation, BPS Longitudinal Study
Abstract
As many as 75% of college students change their major at least once during their undergraduate career (Gordon & Steele, 2015). This study examined the impact of academic major changes on bachelor’s degree attainment within six years. Using data from the 2012/17 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (n = 13,800), we found a significant increase in odds of degree attainment for students who changed their major one or more times. Accompanying our analyses and results, we offer implications for early advising and transition programming including the role of meta-majors, and consideration for student backgrounds as they seek advising and choose majors.
