Occupational Prestige Expectations Among Male College Graduates

Path analysis shows that occupational prestige expectations held three years after college graduation are related to graduate enrolment and expectations held during the senior year. These, in turn, are related to college grades and earlier prestige expectations. Even as early as the freshman year, prestige expectations are only weakly related to parental socioeconomic status, although they are related to intellectual ability. The low relation between prestige expectations and parental SES is consistent with earlier work which showed that the effects of parental SES on actual occupational attainment are largely transmitted by education.