Graduate school is an option to get advanced academic degrees (such as
master's and doctoral degrees) after earning an undergraduate
(bachelor's) degree. There are many reasons to further our education - to advance one's career, to move to a new professional field, to expand the knowledge of a current field, to gain recognition and credibility, just name a few. Graduate education is serving these purposes with advanced academic training. However, there have been problematic situations in graduate schools.
Growing evidence revealed that mental health challenges are common for graduate students. Two US non-profit organizations, the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) and the Jed Foundation (JED) conducted research on graduate students' mental health and well-being starting in 2019. Signs of mental health challenges, such as burnout, anxiety and depression are alarming among graduate students. Moreover, the attrition rates for PhD programs in the US across the field of social and natural science, mathematics, humanities and engineering range from 30-50%, according to the PhD completion project (2008).
Many may have good dreams to go to graduate school, and wish to have a better future and a happier life. If the program is that stressful, and causes half of the students to quit, it is questionable to get that degree. What is going on? Despite the challenges while studying in the graduate programs and high attrition rate, graduate student enrollment actually are increasing over the years. There were only 9 years when graduate student enrollment were less than the previous year in the past 50 years (1975-2022).
(Figure 1)
Figure 1 shows the US graduate student enrollment (including science, engineering and health) in 1975-2022. The graduate students include both master's and doctoral students. The data were extracted from National Center for Science and Engineering
Statistics (NCSES), nsf22319-tab001-001. The graduate fields of study do not include professional programs, such as law and medicine. The list of the fields of study in science,
engineering and health in the NCSES data is available here. The bar chart shows the number of enrollment and the line chart shows the percentage change of enrollment from the previous year.
The increase of graduate students is not an independent event, but it is a part of higher education expansion. The Higher Education Act, first signed into law in 1965, was designed to provide financial assistants to post-secondary students and to strengthen the educational resources of US colleges and universities. Now college enrollment is about tripled compared to 50 years ago.
(Figure 2)
Figure 2 overlays the percentage change from previous years for US graduate student enrollment (including science, engineering and health) as shown in Figure 1 and the percentage change from previous years for college enrollment over the years till 2021. The college enrollment data were extracted from National Center for Education Statistics (NCS), Table 303.70. If the percentage change is negative (below zero), it means the enrollment was decreased from previous year. From 1985 to 2011, most years had a positive percentage college enrollment change, and there were only 3 years that had negative percentage changes from previous years. After 2010, till 2021, the percentage college enrollment changes were negative, showing decreased college enrollment in the recent past ten years. From the overlay, we can see the peaks of the percentage change of the graduate enrollment often occurred 1-4 years later than the peaks of the percentage change of the college enrollment. This trend suggests a correlation between the college enrollment and graduate enrollment.
Most people go through education for future careers. National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) has conducted the First Destinations survey since 2014. First Destinations survey assesses the employment status of new college and graduate level graduates within six months of graduation. In 2014-2020, on average 53% new college graduates were employed full-time on standard jobs within six months of graduation. Almost half of the college graduates cannot land standard full-time jobs after six months of graduation. On average 18% of college graduates had gone to further their education within that six months in 2014-2020. NCES Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study showed that around 40% college graduates enrolled in a graduate degree program within four years graduating from college. Therefore, more college enrollment will cause more graduate enrollment in the future. Each year, there are about four million college students who graduate. It is not hard to calculate how many people will flush into the graduate program annually.
College education curriculum is often course-driven, and it can serve large student population. However, graduate programs often require research besides course works, and it would be challenging to accommodate a large student body. For example, the PhD training is still largely based on the apprentice model, in which PhD graduate students must be under the advising of faculty advisors to complete their program. A healthy relationship with the faculty advisor is critical for a PhD graduate student to complete his/her graduate program, and move further to his/her academic career. If there are too many graduate students under one faculty advisor, there will be competition and the faculty advisor may not be able to meet all students' needs. The reasons for stress among graduate students may be varied, spreading from the pressure to publish, workload, competitive academic job market, role conflict and unpredictable future. These issues are critical for a graduate training, and should be addressed in the graduate program. However, a typical graduate program often does not include the components of professional development and progress evaluation/support in the curriculum. The professional development and other supporting activities are only extra curriculum novelties.
Higher education has been transformed since the Higher Education Act 50 years ago. One significant transformation is that millions have gone to higher education. The argument here is about quantity and quality. Today, student loan debt is the 2nd highest consumer debt category. Whether does an academic degree give a person necessary knowledge and skills to proceed with the desired career path and have a happy life? Whether more is always better? More is not always better. We need to think about what is fit.
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