Exactly 48,802 people, a number equal to the population of East Brunswick, N.J., were awarded doctoral degrees in the United States in 2008, according to a brief report released on Thursday by the National Science Foundation.
That figure was up 1.4 percent from 2007 — the smallest increase in the last several years.
The NSF brief summarizes certain findings from the 2008 Survey of Earned Doctorates, which is the major annual compendium of data about Ph.D. education in the United States.
Historically, those surveys have been summarized in lengthy annual reports, which can run more than 200 pages. But the full report on the 2007 survey, which was originally scheduled for release in December 2008, has been delayed by conflicts over how to balance federal privacy laws against researchers' desire for demographic data.
Officials at the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center, which administers the survey, did not immediately respond to an inquiry on Thursday about when the full 2007 and 2008 reports would be released.
Among other highlights, the new NSF brief reported that:
- The overall number of doctorates awarded increased by 14.5 percent from 1998 to 2008. But in the humanities, the number of doctorates declined by 12 percent across the same period.
- In science and engineering fields, the proportion of doctorates awarded to women rose from 37.7 percent in 2003 to 39.5 percent in 2008. (Note that the NSF's taxonomy defines "science and engineering" somewhat eccentrically, so that the category includes economics, political science, and other social sciences. Thursday's report does not include a detailed demographic breakdown by field.)
- Compared with their counterparts in 1988, foreign students holding temporary student visas in 2008 were much more likely to report intentions to stay in the United States after earning their doctorates. Among foreign students with definite plans for employment or training after graduation, 59.5 percent in 1988 said they planned to stay in the United States, while 78.2 percent did so in 2008. The increase might be explained partly by the spread of postdoctoral fellowships, the report suggests.
Comments
1. commserver - November 20, 2009 at 10:47 am
Does the total increase reflect the growing number of ONLINE programs? I see there is a dramatic increase in the number of such programs. They seem to be easier to be accepted into than the traditional programs.