Grounded in Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), this study contributes to empirical efforts to understand factors affecting the career-development process of American youth by focusing on change in occupational expectations between age 16 and 26. The study is based on the secondary analysis of longitudinal data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002. The main result is that occupational expectations decrease over time, and the change is strongly affected by student educational expectations and actual attainment by age 26. The study findings indicate that higher educational attainment leads to stability in occupational expectations and higher prestige scores of the intended occupations. Females are more likely than males to have higher occupational expectations. Academic self-efficacy and self-regulatory behaviours during secondary education lead to higher occupational expectations, as does an understanding of employment barriers. Non-college-bound youth and postsecondary non-completers experience a higher drop in occupational expectations over time which could reveal unrealistic career plans.