| This research explores the relationship between place and the career experiences of STEM-educated recent college graduates in the U.S. over the 2000--2010 decade. Specifically, it seeks to understand how these graduates' early career outcomes (earnings, odds of unemployment and underemployment) are contingent on the location where they received their degrees, in addition to individual and institutional level characteristics. The findings show that individual factors are the most important factors determining all three outcomes. Women and Blacks are considerably more disadvantaged (than male and White counterparts), while higher grades, more experience and spatial mobility are overwhelmingly positively related to earnings, and negatively---to chances of unemployment and underemployment. Health and engineering are the most lucrative majors in terms all three outcomes. Graduates' outcomes worsened during the recent recession, but varied significantly across the geographic areas. Higher education institutional factors, selectivity and college specialization in STEM, are strong predictors of higher earnings, but not other outcomes. Geographic factors, such as college area STEM employment concentration and proximity to STEM clusters, are significant in explaining all three outcomes. This study contributes to the scholarship on higher education, labor market, and gender and racial disparity studies from a geographic and comparative perspective. It particularly provides policy implication on higher education policy with regards to STEM disciplines; it further calls for investigation of the relationship between higher education institution and regional development, and the integration of the efforts between the two. |
