9/14/2010: More women than men are now in PhD programs, and the current growth in PhD numbers is also mostly from women – even in math, engineering, and physical sciences. From Scott Jaschik in Insidehighered.com:
Average Annual Change in Number of New Doctoral Degrees, by Gender, 1998-9 to 2008-9
Field Women Men Social and behavioral sciences +3.2% +0.5% Public administration and services +5.8% +0.3% Physical and earth sciences +4.7% +0.2% Math and computer science +7.0% +4.3% Health sciences +14.0% +3.9% Engineering +6.0% +3.3% Education +1.4% +0.1% Business +1.9% +0.3% Biological and agricultural sciences +7.7% +1.2% Arts and humanities +1.4% -0.2% … Here are some of the other highlights of the new report on graduate enrollments:
- The increasing share of women in graduate education is not present among international students, where they make up only 42 percent of students. The share of women is much larger among U.S. citizens, and reaches 71 percent for African American graduate students.
- The representation of minority groups in American graduate schools continued a pattern of modest increases. In 2009, the percentage reached 29.1 percent, up from 28.3 percent the year before.
- With U.S. enrollments increasing, the percentage of international students among first-time graduate enrollments fell in 2009 to 16.5 percent, from 18 percent the prior year.
- Applications to U.S. graduate schools (for master’s and doctoral programs) increased 8.3 percent from 2008 to 2009.
- The most popular fields in total number of applicants are business, engineering, and the social and behavioral sciences, but the largest percentage increase came in health sciences, up 14.6 percent.
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