Who does (and does not) take introductory economics?

Abstract

The author of this article summarizes which, when, where, and how students take introductory economics. Among students who began college in 2012, 74 percent never took economics, up from 62 percent in 2004. Fifteen percent of beginning college students in 2012 took some economics, and 12 percent were one-and-done students. About half of introductory economics students never took another economics class, and only about 2 percent majored in economics. The characteristics of one-and-done and some economics students are generally similar and closer to one another than to students with no economics. The implication is that efforts to diversify the profession should focus at least in part on attracting students who would otherwise not take introductory economics.

Keywords:

• Beginning Postsecondary Survey
• diversity in economics
• undergraduate economics courses and majors

JEL CODES:

• A2
• A22

Acknowledgments

The author thanks John Siegfried, Tisha Emerson, KimMarie McGoldrick, Avi Cohen, Scott Wolla, and participants at the SEE annual meeting for helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 One-and-done students take one economics course during college. Some economics students take more than one economics course in college, and no economics students take no college-level economics. The share of one-and-done students for whom the one economics class was not an introductory course is very small (2% in the 2012 BPS, 3% in the 2004 BPS, and 4% in the 2008 B&B). Thus, one-and-done students are overwhelmingly those who have taken only introductory economics.

2 I refer to postsecondary institutions and outcomes using the terms “college,” “university, and “institution” interchangeably throughout the article.

3 See table 1. In the 2012 BPS, 12 percent of students were one-and-done, and 14 percent were some economics students. Of the 26 percent of students who had at least one economics course, 46 percent (12/26) were one-and-done, implying that roughly half of introductory students never take another economics course. In the 2012 BPS, 47 percent of students who took introductory economics were one-and-done. This figure was 43 percent in the 2004 BPS and 47 percent in the 2008 B&B. Among the 14 percent of the sample with some economics, 4 percent major in economics. Applying these percentages to a typical introductory class implies that 46 percent take no other economics, 54 percent take additional economics, and 2.2 percent (0.04*0.54) major in economics.

4 The MIDFIELD institutions are Clemson, Florida A&M, Florida State, Georgia Tech, North Carolina A&T, North Carolina State, Purdue, University of Colorado, University of Florida, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and Virginia Tech, although the number of participating institutions has varied over time and not all institutions are represented every year.

5 Bosshardt and Watts (2005) also use the B&B to examine undergraduate coursework in economics but with a focus on economics exposure among future teachers.

6 Roughly 3 percent of observations were missing complete demographic or transcript information.

7 The CIP was developed by the NCES to provide a consistent taxonomic scheme to track outcomes for different fields of study across time (see https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/cip2000/ for more information on the CIP classification system).

8 The 45.06 CIP “economics” category includes 45.0601 general economics, 45.0602 applied economics, 45.0603 econometrics and quantitative economics, 45.0604 development economics, 45.0605 international economics, and 45.069 other economics. Natural resource economics is in the 03.02 CIP category, economic history is in 54.01, and business/managerial economics is in 52.06.

9 For each dataset, I examined all the course names in the 45.06, 03.02, 54.01, and 52.06 CIP categories and any course with “economics” or a similar term in the title. The Stata code I used is available on request.

10 I use data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS, https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/) in figures 9 and 10. IPEDS gathers information from every college, university, and technical and vocational institution that participates in the federal student financial aid programs and includes information on enrollments, program completions, graduation rates, faculty and staff, finances, institutional prices, and student financial aid.

11 According to the NCES (https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/search/ViewTable?tableId=11308), there were 17.7 million students enrolled in college in the fall of 2004 and 21.1 million enrolled in the fall of 2012. Using the average of the two (19.4 million), I estimate that roughly 7.4 million students (38%) from the 2004 cohort were exposed to economics, while only 5 million students (26%) from the 2012 cohort were exposed to economics, a difference of roughly 2.4 million students.

12 Because the BPS surveys beginning college students, many are undeclared/general education majors and/or leave college before formally declaring a major. The 2012 (but not 2004) BPS includes a BPS-derived first-year major at a detailed enough CIP code level to identify economics majors separately from social sciences majors more generally. The distribution of majors among some economics students in the 2012 BPS who did not major in economics is business (41%), undeclared/general (15%), engineering (7%), social sciences, health, vocational/technical (6% each), life sciences (5%), humanities (4%), education and computer science (3% each), and physical sciences and other professional (1.5% each), and math (<1%).

13 Both cohorts are included in figure 7 because their timing of economics course-taking is nearly identical.

14 AP credits for economics could be from either the AP macroeconomics or AP microeconomics exam.

15 A score of 3 on the exam counts for college credit at many institutions, but because different institutions have different criteria for accepting AP credits, the score necessary to “pass” varies.

16 The College Board, which administers the AP program, notes that AP exam participation rose from 19 percent of the high school graduating class of 2003 to 33 percent of the class of 2013, in part due to an array of programs to expand access to the AP program (https://newsroom.collegeboard.org/10-years-advanced-placement-exam-data-show-significant-gains-access-and-success-areas-improvement).

17 Dual enrollment programs are partnerships between colleges and high schools that allow high school students to enroll in college courses and earn transferable college credit.

18 The discipline groups are aggregated from more than 50 separate majors in the IPEDS data. Arts and Architecture includes architecture and environmental design and arts and music. Political Science includes political science, and public administration and law. Other Social Sciences includes anthropology, area and ethnic studies, history of science, linguistics, social service professions, and sociology. Math, Engineering, Computer Science, and Technology includes mathematics and statistics, all subfields of engineering, computer science, and health, science, and engineering technologies. Humanities includes English and literature, foreign languages, history, and religion and theology. Life and Medical Sciences includes agricultural sciences, biological sciences, medical sciences, and "other" life sciences (e.g., nursing, physical therapy, exercise science, and occupational therapy). Physical & Geosciences includes astronomy, atmospheric sciences, chemistry, earth sciences, oceanography, physics, and interdisciplinary sciences. Other Disciplines includes communication and librarianship, vocational studies and home economics, and other non-sciences or unknown disciplines.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by the MSU Initiative for Regulation and Applied Economics.