Switching Field of Study: Different Educational Pathways of Highly Educated Natives and Immigrants

Siqi Han, Ohio State University

This paper advances understanding of immigrants’ post-immigration educational attainment by considering one aspect of horizontal stratification: switching field of study between college and graduate school and its potential impact. Foreign educated immigrants with a STEM degree may be more likely to retain in STEM fields than to switch to non-STEM fields when entering a U.S. graduate school than their native counterparts. This is due to higher transferability of STEM knowledge and immigrants’ weaker context-specific knowledge. To test these ideas, I compare foreign college-educated immigrants and U.S. college-educated immigrants to U.S. college-educated natives. Data from National Survey of College Graduates show that immigrants are more likely to retain in STEM or to switch to STEM from non-STEM fields; natives are more likely to switch from STEM to law, medicine and business. These results suggest that lower educational returns among highly educated immigrants can be explained, in part, by field of study.