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Despite the rapid expansion of higher education, many young adults still enter the labor market without a college education. However, little research has focused on racial/ethnic earnings disadvantages faced by non-college-educated youth. We analyze the restricted-use data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 to examine racial/ethnic earnings disparities among non-college-educated young men and women in their early 20s as of 2016, accounting for differences in premarket factors and occupation with an extensive set of controls. Results suggest striking earnings disadvantages for Black men relative to white, Latinx, and Asian men. Compared to white men, Latinx and Asian men do not earn significantly less, yet their earnings likely differ substantially by ethnic origin. While racial/ethnic earnings gaps are less prominent among women than men, women of all racial/ethnic groups have earnings disadvantages compared to white men. The results call for future studies into the heterogeneity within racial/ethnic groups and the intersectionality of race/ethnicity and gender among non-college-educated young adults. 

The STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) potential of youth with cognitive disabilities is often dismissed through problematic perceptions of STEM ability as natural and of youth with cognitive disabilities as unable. National data on more than 15,000 adolescents from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 first suggest that, among youth with disabilities, youth with medicated attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have the highest levels of STEM achievement, and youth with learning or intellectual disabilities typically have the lowest. Undergraduates with medicated ADHD or autism appear to be more likely to major in STEM than youth without cognitive disabilities, and youth with autism have the most positive STEM attitudes. Finally, results suggest that high school STEM achievement is more salient for college enrollment than STEM-positive attitudes across youth with most disability types, whereas attitudes are more salient than achievement for choosing a STEM major.