The number of ethnic minority, first-time graduate students inched up from 2016 to 2017 while women earned the majority of graduate degrees for the eighth year in a row, according to the latest annual study by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) and the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) Board.
Released Wednesday, the “CGS/GRE Survey of Graduate Enrollment and Degrees: 2007 to 2017” contains data that illuminates first-time graduate student application and enrollment trends by gender, race, academic field and student origin. Key findings of the new survey, in which 619 schools participated, include:
· The number of first-time applications for admission declined by 1.8 percent between fall 2016 and fall 2017 while growth in first-time college enrollment and total enrollment remained flat.
· Underrepresented minorities accounted for 23.9 percent of all first-time U.S citizen and permanent resident enrollees, slightly up from 23.4 percent the prior year and a steady uptick from 21.1 percent in fall 2013.
· Although minorities remain significantly underrepresented, especially in STEM fields, first-time enrollment increases among Hispanic and Latino men and women have been remarkable – up 5.6 percent for two consecutive years with average increases of 8 percent over five years and 8.1 percent over 10 years, fueled by a 21.8 percent rise in math and computer sciences and double-digit percentage increases in business and engineering programs.
· For the eighth year in a row, the majority of graduate students at all levels were women, constituting 59.2 percent at the certificate and master’s level and 53.5 percent at the doctoral level.
· International students were the majority of first-time graduate students in math and computer sciences (56.3 percent) and engineering (52.9 percent).
