“What Was College Made For?” Exploring College Students’ Civic Engagement Outcomes by College Major

In light of political discourse around return-on-investment (ROI) of obtaining postsecondary degrees, one often overlooked outcome of a college education is students’ development of their civic engagement. We were concerned about whether specific degree programs targeted for elimination may enroll students with higher levels of civic engagement. We used the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09) from the National Council of Educational Statistics (NCES) to examine differences across academic major categories in several measures of civic engagement including 1) registered to vote in the U.S., 2) engagement in community service/volunteer work, 3) perceived importance of contributing to society, and 4) participating in a community-based project for a college course. Employing multinomial propensity score estimation, we found meaningful differences across majors in civic engagement. College majors often perceived as lower on ROI had higher levels of civic engagement on most measures. We discuss how the elimination of specific degree programs under political pressure may reduce progress towards a central aim of postsecondary institutions: To shape civically minded contributors toward a democratic society.