Graduate Student and Faculty Trends from the CAUT Almanac

Some interesting tidbits from the 2012-13 CAUT Almanac: In 2009-10, women accounted for 54% of degree enrollment at the Master's level (down from 56% last year); holding steady at 47% at the Ph.D. level for 2009-2010. In 2010, 44,919 master's, and 5,736 degrees were awarded in Canada. Women accounted for 61.5% of Master's degrees; 44.3% of Doctorates that were awarded for 2009-2010. In 2011, 2,034 new full-time university teachers were appointed in Canada. 44.2% were women. The proportion of full-time university teachers employed beyond the age of 65 more than quadrupled between 2001 and 2011, to 5.1% of males and 3.8% of females. The number of 'senior' full-time university teachers exceeded the number of 'junior' teachers in 2010-11: 5.7% were within the 30-34 age bracket; 5.8% were between 65-69 years of age.

Canadian Trends in Graduate Education

The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has released its annual Almanac of Post-Secondary Education in Canada. Highlights with regards to graduate education include the following:

- In 2008, Canadian universities awarded 36,423 Master's and 4,962 Doctorates.

- Women accounted for 56% of Master's program enrollments and 47% at the PhD level in 2008-2009.

- In 2008-2009, International students made up 15% of Master's and 21% of PhD program enrollments.

- In Newfoundland and Labrador, at the Master's level, the majority of Master's degrees awarded in 2008 went to women in all disciplines, with the exception of Architecture, Engineering, and Related Technologies, where they accounted for only 22.2%; and Mathematics, Computer and Information Sciences (28.6%). Overall, women accounted for 58.5% of Master's degrees that were awarded in the province.

- at the national level, women lagged behind men in the number of Doctorates awarded in 2008 in most fields, with the exception of the following fields: Business, Management and Public Administration (50.8%); Education (67.8%); Health, Parks, Recreation and Fitness (59.1%); Social and Behavioural Sciences, and Law (60.2%).

The full Almanac can be read here.

Trends in U.S. Graduate Education II

A new report, “Graduate Enrollment and Degrees: 2000 to 2010”, was released last week by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS). According to the press release, enrolment of new graduate students at U.S. schools decreased for the first time since 2003, by 1.1% from 2009 to 2010. This, despite an 8.4% increase in applications; the report states that approximately 42% of all graduate applications were accepted.

Other findings from the report include the following:

- women accounted for 58% of first time graduate students, and 59% of all graduate students, in fall 2010. They also earned two-thirds of graduate certificates, 60% of master’s degrees, and 52% of doctorates awarded in 2009-10. The academic year of 2009-10 academic year marks the second consecutive year women have earned the majority of doctoral degrees in the U.S.

- While approximately three-quarters of all graduate students were enrolled in masters’ degree or graduate certificate programs, total enrolment increased faster at the doctoral level (3.3%) than at the master’s degree and graduate certificate level (0.5%) between fall 2009 and 2010. First-time graduate enrolment increased 1.5% at the doctoral level, but fell 1.6% at the master’s degree and graduate certificate level.

- More than half of all graduate students in fall 2010 were enrolled in programs in education, business, or health sciences.

The full report can be read here.

A Profile of Graduate and First-Professional Students in the U.S.

A new report was recently released by the U.S. department of education; prepared by the National Center for Education Statistics. The report draws on data from the 2007-08 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study and takes a look at the enrolment characteristics of graduate and first-professional students, when they started their programs, how they combined school and work; the costs of attending, and the sources used to pay for their education, including amounts provided. Highlighted key findings from the report include the following:

* About 65% of all graduate/first-professional students were enrolled in master’s degree programs (31% in education). 15% were enrolled in doctoral programs (60% in a PhD program); 9% were in first-professional programs (51% were in law).

* Students in MBA programs and master’s or doctoral programs in education were more likely to have delayed enrolment in graduate education after completing their undergraduate degrees, to work full time, and to be enrolled part time, compared to medical, health science and law students who tended to be enrolled full time and within two years of earning a Bachelor’s degree, and not work full time,

* Average total costs of full time, full year attendance ranged from $28,400 for a Master’s degree program at a public institution to $52,500 for a first-professional program at a private non-profit institution.

* 91% of doctoral students received some type of financial aid. Doctoral students (except for those in education) were most likely to receive grants and the least likely to take out loans; borrowing was more common amongst first-professional students than master’s or doctoral students. Education doctoral students received financial aid less commonly than other doctoral students; relied solely on loans more commonly than Ph.D. students in other fields.

The full report can be found here:

Graduate Enrolment Growth in Ontario and Canada

A new report has been released by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, "Expanding Opportunities for Graduate Studies: The Recent Experience of Ontario."
This report sheds light on graduate program enrolment trends in Ontario and how these compare to patterns established at the national level, and can be read here.

Canadian Graduate School Enrolments Continue to Rise, but Women Still Lag Behind at Doctoral Level

A recent article in The Gateway, the official student newspaper at the University of Manitoba, discusses gender equality at the highest levels of education, noting the fact that women still lag behind men in doctoral enrolments. At U of M, women outnumber men in doctoral programs in a number of disciplines, including medicine and architecture. It is a very different picture if we look at engineering and the hard sciences, however, where women are least represented. The article makes reference to a recent report released by Statistics Canada, which examines trends in doctoral program enrolment, earned doctorates, and university faculty, with a focus on gender.

According to that report, women accounted for 58% of undergraduate and 56% of master’s program enrolments in 2008/2009, while accounting for 47% of doctoral enrolments. Women also accounted for 44% of doctoral degrees granted in 2008. Female doctoral graduates represented the majority of earned doctorates in four fields: education; social and behavioural sciences, and law; health, parks, recreation and fitness; business, management and public administration. Women are least represented in architecture, engineering and related technologies; and mathematics, computer and information sciences, accounting for less than 30% of earned doctorates in each of these two fields.

According to data made available from Statistics Canada that is complied yearly and included in the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) Almanac of Post-Secondary Education in Canada, women accounted for 50.2% of full-time doctoral enrolments in the 2005-2006 academic year; this is the only time that women have outnumbered men in enrolments at this level. Full-time doctoral enrolments have risen by roughly three-quarters in the last ten years, but the enrolment of women in doctoral programs has only risen by a little less than 3% over this period; in fact enrolment has decreased in the last three years by 3% from the 50.2% accounted for in 2005 to 47% reported in 2008. Meanwhile, women’s full-time master’s program enrolments have exceeded the enrolment of men for quite some time; have steadily risen by a little over 3% since 1998.

International Graduate Students in the U.S. and Canada

According to a news release, The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) reported yesterday that first-time international graduate student enrolment has increased by 3% from 2009 to 2010. Other findings from the report, Findings from the 2010 CGS International Graduate Admissions Survey, Phase III: Final Offers of Admissions and Enrollment, were as follows:

- Total enrolment rose only 1%, the smallest increase in four years.

- Most of the institutions that participated in both 2009 and 2010 reported an increase in first-time enrolment, with an average increase of 14%.

- China and India send the most graduate students to the U.S., but while the former noted a first-time enrolment increase of 20%, the latter noted a 3% decline.

- Education is the only ‘broad field’ that reported a decline in first-time enrolment (down 7%).

- Overall, there was a 5% growth at institutions granting the largest number of degrees to international students, while there was no increase at schools outside the 100 largest.

- Doctoral institutions saw first-time enrolment rise by 4%, while masters-focused institutions dropped 7%.

The report is based on the final phase of a three-part annual survey of international graduate student applications, admissions, and enrolment among CGS U.S. member institutions, and can be found here.

In Canada, increased efforts to recruit international graduate students - particularly PhD candidates, has been hotly contested recently. The Ontario government has announced that it will fund 75 new international scholarships, each worth $40,000 annually for four years. Starting in 2011-2012, the Ontario Trillium Scholarships will be divided among the province’s universities funded two-thirds by the government and one-third by the various schools. Earlier this year, the Ontario government announced its goal of increasing foreign enrolment in postsecondary institutions, currently at 38,000, by 50% in five years, and also introduced measures to fast-track graduate students into permanent resident status. As this article states, “But these 75 new spots are more about luring elite minds who might otherwise land prestigious places elsewhere, such as the United States.” The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada has reported increases in foreign enrolment for fifteen consecutive years.

According to critics, the new program is insulting to students in the province, who already pay the highest fees in the country, as well as to taxpayers, who will be putting out $20 million of the $30 million project. Follow the debate here.

Graduate Education Happenings at Memorial

The most recent edition of The Gazette, Memorial University's newspaper, reports on a number of important achievements in graduate education this semester. Graduate enrollment has increased by 10.3% over last year, with a total of 2,954 registrations, of which 1,677 students are studying full-time, and 1,277 on a part-time basis. Dr. Noreen Golfman, dean of the School of Graduate Studies, says that rising enrollment can be attributed to a number of factors, such as ..."the excellent graduate programming Memorial has to offer, the superior research carried out by faculty at this institution, the competitive funding and tuition made possible by support of the provincial government and our more aggressive approach to recruiting the best and the brightest graduate students."

Memorial has created the first online Masters in Physical Education (MPE) degree to be offered in Canada. The program was created and is delivered by the School of Human Kinetics and Recreation (HKR), Distance Education and Learning Technologies (DELT), and the provincial government's Department of Education. The new program received the Innovative and Creative Programming award this year at the University Continuing Education Association (UCEA) international conference in San Francisco, CA. DELT also received an award for its social media marketing via Facebook. Memorial's distance education offerings are the largest among Canadian comprehensive universities.

U.S. Doctorate Program Assessment

Yesterday the National Research Council released a report entitled A Data-Based Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States. According to the report brief, this assessment consists of data on over 5,000 doctoral programs in 62 fields at 212 universities, and includes "information on faculty research productivity, institutional support for students, and the diversity of faculty and students, among many other characteristics."

The assessment provides data for each program on 20 characteristics, which were collected from the academic year 2005-2006 through questionnaires sent to doctoral faculty, as well as heads of doctoral programs, administrators, and students. Information on characteristics such as publications and citations came from public sources and uses a considerably longer timeframe.Data on these 20 characteristics also served as the basis for the illustrative rankings included in the assessment.The report also offers illustrative ranges of rankings for each program on three separate dimensions of doctoral education- research activity, student support and outcomes, and diversity.

Finally, the report examines findings and trends in doctoral education. Some interesting points are as follows:

-The number of students enrolled has increased in engineering (4%) and in physical sciences (9%) but declined in the social sciences (-5%) and humanities (-12%).

-On average programs in all fields have experienced a growth in the percentage of female students. The smallest growth (3.4%) was in the humanities fields, which were already heavily female, while the greatest growth (9%) was in engineering - to 22% overall.

-Over 50% of students complete their degree in six years or less in the agricultural sciences and in engineering. In the social sciences 37% complete in six years or less, while the same percentage of humanities students complete by eight years.

-The majority of students in the five fields surveyed for the report (chemical engineering, physics, neuroscience, economics, and English) were "very satisfied" or "somewhat satisfied" with the quality of their program. Over 60% in most fields felt they benefited from the program's intellectual environment, but only 40% or less of were satisfied with the program-sponsored social interaction.

According to the news release, the assessment is designed to help universities evaluate and improve the quality of their programs and to provide prospective students with information on the nation's doctoral programs.

Further information, and a download of the full report, can be accessed here.

Trends in U.S. Graduate Education

According to this news release, the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS)has released a report today entitled "Graduate Enrollment and Degrees: 1999 to 2009". The report contains statistics on graduate applications and enrollment for fall 2009, degrees conferred in 2008-09, and trend data for one-, five- and ten-year periods. Data is based on the findings of an annual survey of U.S. graduate schools, co-sponsored by CGS and the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) Board, and "the only annual national survey that covers enrollment in all fields of graduate study and is the only source of national data on graduate applications." Interesting findings include the following:

* Applications for admission to U.S. graduate schools grew 8.3% from 2008 to 2009

* Enrollment of new students at U.S. graduate schools grew 5.5% from 2008 to 2009

* First-time and total graduate enrollment in 2009 was higher for men than for women. First-time enrollment of men increased 6.7%, compared to 4.7% for women, while the growth in total enrollment rose 5.2% for men compared to 4.4% for women.

* The enrollment of new international graduate students declined in 2009, by 1.7%, compared to 6.0% growth for U.S. students.

* For the first time ever, women earned the majority of doctorates (50.4%) in the 2008-2009 academic year. Women also accounted for 6 out of 10 graduate student enrollments. Inside Higher Ed
notes that female graduates are still under represented in such fields as engineering (22%), math and computer science (27%), and physical and earth sciences (33%).

* First-time graduate enrollment increased faster at the doctoral level than at the master’s level: 6.3% vs. 5.1%.

* The representation of minority groups in U.S. graduate schools rose from 28.3% to 29.1% of first-time domestic enrollment.

* Approximately three-fourths of all graduate student enrollments were at the master’s level, and almost 90% of graduate degrees conferred in 2008-09 were master’s degrees.

* The number of master’s degrees awarded increased 4.3% and the number of doctoral degrees conferred grew 3.9% between 2007-08 and 2008-09.

The full report can be read here