A Look at Gender Differences in Graduate Enrollments and Degree Attainments

A new report from the Council of Graduate Schools offers data on enrollments and degree attainments by gender at U.S. graduate schools.

A total of 506,927 graduate students enrolled for the first time in graduate programs in the fall of 2015. More than 57 percent were women. Women were more than 51 percent of the first-time enrollees in doctoral programs. But men still outnumber women in first-time enrollments in graduate programs in business, engineering, mathematics, computer sciences, and physical and earth sciences.

In the 2014-15 academic year, women earned more than 58 percent of the master’s degrees awarded and more than 51 percent of the doctoral degrees. It was the seventh consecutive year in which women earned the majority of the degrees awarded at the doctoral level.

At the master’s degree level, there were significant differences in the gender gap in degree attainments depending on the field of study. For example, women earned more than three quarters of all master’s degrees in education, health sciences, and public administration. But they earned only a quarter of the master’s degrees in engineering and less than a third of the master’s degrees in mathematics and computer science. Similar gender differences occurred in doctoral degree awards.

The full report, Graduate Enrollment and Degrees: 2005 to 2015, may be downloaded by clicking here.