NEW: Graduate Enrollment and Degrees 2025 Report
The annual CGS/ETS Survey of Graduate Enrollment and Degrees report presents data on applications for admission to graduate school, graduate student enrollment, and graduate degrees and certificates conferred. This survey is the only source for data on both first-time and total graduate enrollment across all fields of master’s and research doctorate programs and on applications to graduate school by broad field of study.
This year’s report begins with “Quick Takes” summarizing key findings and includes a “Looking Forward” section that outlines projections suggesting that graduate education is entering a period of realignment, where institutional scale, workforce relevance, and global accessibility will determine long-term resilience.
Admissions
Identifying talented students poised to succeed is the first step in building a strong graduate program. CGS conducts research to understand how graduate schools identify promising candidates for admission and avoid unfair biases.
Holistic Review of Graduate Admissions
Based on the findings of a 2015 research project supported by Hobsons, this publication explores current strategies for creating a more diverse graduate student population. This publication outlines the current state of graduate admissions at U.S. institutions, offers promising practices for graduate institutions seeking to implement holistic admissions processes, and provides an overview of existing resources for institutions.
Master’s Admissions: Transparency, Guidance, and Training
Approximately three out of four graduate students in the United States are pursuing a master’s degree. This publication examines how master’s students are admitted to their programs of study, helping graduate deans and their admissions teams put transparent processes in place to better identify promising candidates for admission and avoid unfair biases.
An Essential Guide to Graduate Admissions
This publication identifies good practices in graduate admissions and graduate enrollment management. Topics addressed include organizational structures and university-wide policies and procedures, departmental guidelines, and legal and financial issues.
Completion
Completing a degree is the goal of every student who enrolls in a graduate program. However, degree completion is influenced by a variety of factors.
Master’s Completion
Master’s education is the fastest growing and largest component of the graduate enterprise in the United States, yet little is known about completion and attrition rates in master’s programs and factors contributing to student success. To begin to address this gap, CGS conducted a pilot study, Completion and Attrition in STEM Master’s Programs.
PhD Completion
The Ph.D. Completion Project was a seven-year, grant-funded project that addressed the issues surrounding Ph.D. completion and attrition and resulted in four publications:
- PhD Completion and Attrition: Policy, Numbers, Leadership, and Next Steps
- Ph.D. Completion and Attrition: Analysis of Baseline Demographic Data
- Ph.D. Completion and Attrition: Findings from Exit Surveys of PhD Completers
- Ph.D. Completion and Attrition: Policies and Practices to Promote Student Success
Underrepresented Student Attrition and Completion
Doctoral education can be credited for any number of scientific, literary, and intellectual achievements, and those U.S. institutions that confer doctoral degrees are often regarded as being of the highest quality in the world. Underrepresented minority (URM) students, however, have not participated in doctoral education at the same rate as their peers, a trend that is particularly acute in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. America’s capacity to meet STEM workforce demands of the future will undoubtedly be compromised if this state of underrepresentation is allowed to persist.
The Doctoral Initiative on Minority Attrition and Completion (DIMAC) report reflects analysis of the largest dataset on completion and attrition among URM STEM students.