The Gender Gap in Graduate School Enrollments and Degree Attainments

The Council of Graduate Schools recently released a new report on enrollments and degree attainments in master’s and doctoral degree programs at U.S. universities. The report shows that in 2014 there were 1.7 million students enrolled in graduate education programs in the United States. The report stated that first-time enrollments in graduate programs in the fall of 2014 stood at more than 479,642 students. This was up slightly from the previous year.

Among the first-time graduate students in 2014, women were 51.0 percent of the new enrollees in doctoral programs, up slightly from 2013. Women were 57.9 percent of new entrants in master’s degree programs. This was down from the previous year. Women were 57.7 of all graduate enrollments and 59.7 percent of all full-time graduate enrollments.

Women made up 74.6 percent of all students in graduate programs in education and 77.6 percent of all students in the health sciences. In contrast, women were only 24.2 percent of the students in graduate programs in engineering and 30.7 percent of the graduate students in mathematics and computer science.

The report also reveals that during the 2013-14 academic year, women were awarded 308,756 master’s degrees at U.S. graduate schools. This was 59.0 percent of all master’s degrees awarded that year. Women earned 52.2 percent of the more than 73,000 doctorate degrees awarded. This was the sixth consecutive years in which women earned more doctoral degrees than men.

The full report, Graduate Enrollment and Degrees, 2004 to 2014, may be downloaded by clicking here.