by Ruth Heuer and Peter Einaudi[1]

Over the past decade, enrollment of full-time graduate students in science and engineering (S&E) grew approximately 25%, from approximately 325,500 students in 2002 to approximately 411,200 in 2011. Enrollment of part-time graduate students increased approximately 15% during this period. From 2010 to 2011, growth in part-time graduate enrollment (1.6%) outpaced that of full-time enrollment (0.5%) for the first time since 2005 (table 1).

Graduate student enrollment among U.S. citizens and permanent residents in S&E grew from approximately 309,100 students in 2002 to approximately 392,200 in 2011, an increase of approximately 25%. Enrollment among foreign students on temporary visas showed slower growth over the course of the past decade, from approximately 145,700 to approximately 168,800 (approximately 15% growth). The growth in foreign graduate enrollment from 2010 to 2011 was higher than that of U.S. citizens and permanent residents (1.6% compared with 0.5%), in contrast to the previous 2 years.

These and other findings in this InfoBrief are from the fall 2011 Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering (GSS), cosponsored by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This InfoBrief focuses primarily on the graduate students and postdocs within S&E fields, although totals in selected health fields are presented for comparison. Further analysis of GSS data on graduate enrollment in selected health fields can be obtained from NIH.[2]

Due to the extra variability that may have resulted from the methodological changes in the 2007 GSS, all numbers and growth rate calculations comparing pre- and post-2007 counts are rounded to the nearest 100 and to the nearest 5%, respectively. See "Data Sources and Limitations" for more information.

Graduate Student Enrollment in S&E

A total of 560,941 full- or part-time graduate students were enrolled in S&E fields in 2011. Growth in S&E graduate enrollment slowed to 0.8% from 2010 to 2011, down from the 2%–3% annual growth in each of the prior 3 years (table 2).

Women's enrollment in S&E graduate programs increased at a faster rate than men's from 2010 to 2011 (0.9% vs. 0.7%, respectively) (table 1). This reestablished the long-term trend toward gender parity in S&E enrollment, following a 3-year period during which male enrollment increased more rapidly than female enrollment. In 2011, women made up 43.3% of the S&E graduate student population, up from 41.5% in 2002.

Nearly two-thirds (65.3%) of U.S. citizens and permanent resident graduate students in 2011 were white. The remaining one-third consisted of graduate students who were Asian (8.5%), black or African American (8.2%), Hispanic or Latino (7.9%), of unknown race or ethnicity (7.8%), more than one race (1.6%), American Indian or Alaska Native (0.6%), or Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (0.3%). This distribution is the most diverse enrollment to date, with whites representing 65.3% of U.S. citizens and permanent resident graduate students in 2011, down from 68.9% in 2002.

The number of graduate students enrolled in science fields has grown steadily over the past decade (approximately 25% from 2002 to 2011), with 1.8% growth from 2010 to 2011. Growth in engineering shows signs of leveling off, with the number of engineering graduate students decreasing (-1.8%) for the first year since 2005. Certain fields within engineering—most notably, biomedical engineering and metallurgical or materials engineering—continue to climb at a higher rate (8.0% and 6.0%, respectively, from 2010 to 2011) than other engineering fields. The notable decline in architecture (-54.2%) is likely due to the exclusion of landscape architecture from GSS eligible fields in 2011.

Postdoctoral Appointees in S&E

The GSS also collects information about postdoctoral appointees (postdocs) employed at U.S. academic institutions (and their affiliates, such as research centers and hospitals) with graduate programs in S&E and selected health fields. A total of 44,249 S&E postdocs were reported in 2011, a slight increase (0.4%) over 2010 (table 3).

The gender gap among S&E postdocs continues to close, with women making up 35.3% of the S&E postdocs in 2011, up from 34.7% in 2010 and 31.7% in 2002. Over the past decade, the number of female postdocs in S&E grew by approximately 55%, compared with approximately 30% for the male postdocs. The proportion of foreign S&E postdocs with temporary visas has declined over the past decade, from 57.7% in 2002 to 53.3% in 2011.

The number of science postdocs has grown consistently over the past decade (about 30% between 2002 and 2011), with a 1.1% increase from 2010 to 2011 (table 3 and figure 1). Among science fields, the number of postdocs in social sciences and "other sciences" grew the most between 2010 and 2011, with increases of 19.7% and 30.2%, respectively.[3] The growth in other sciences was largely due to an increase in neuroscience, the result of improvements in field coding. Starting in 2007, neuroscience was specified as a separate field. Neuroscience units that were previously reported within neurology (clinical medicine) and biological sciences are reported within the neuroscience field.

  Figure 1 Source Data: Excel file

The notable decrease in the number of engineering postdocs (-2.8%) in 2011 is in contrast with the tremendous growth over the past decade (approximately 90%). The numbers of biomedical engineering and industrial engineering postdocs increased by approximately 280% and approximately 180%, respectively, between 2002 and 2011. Chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, and electrical engineering were the top three engineering fields with the most postdocs in 2011; however, the number of electrical engineering postdocs declined (-3.2%), whereas the numbers of chemical engineering and biomedical engineering postdocs continued to grow (4.1% and 3.9%, respectively) from 2010 to 2011.

Data Sources and Limitations

Conducted since 1966, the GSS is an annual survey of all academic institutions in the United States granting research-based master's or doctoral degrees in science, engineering, or selected health (SEH) fields. The 2011 GSS collected data from 13,785 organizational units (departments, programs, affiliated research centers, and health care facilities) at 565 institutions of higher education and their affiliates in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Guam. The institutional response rate was 98.8%. An overview of the survey is available at http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/srvygradpostdoc/.

GSS data are collected for the organizational units where graduate students, postdocs, or other doctorate-holding nonfaculty researchers in research-oriented SEH fields are located. Practitioner-oriented degrees within these units (e.g., master’s degrees in nursing or physical therapy) are not eligible to be surveyed by the GSS. Declines in graduate enrollments in psychology and other health fields since 2008 are likely due to more rigorous follow-up with institutions regarding the exclusion of ineligible practitioner-oriented graduate degree programs. These decreases may not reflect changes in enrollment, and care should be used when examining trends.

In 2010, the postdoc section of the survey was expanded, and significant effort was made to ensure that appropriate personnel were providing the postdoc data (see http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/gradpostdoc/ for more detail). Thus it is unclear how much of the increase reported in 2010 and 2011 represents growth in the number of postdocs and how much results from improved data collection. More information on changes in postdoc data will be available in a forthcoming InfoBrief at http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/gradpostdoc/.

There were a number of changes to the 2011 GSS based on field taxonomy updates to the 2010 U.S. Department of Education Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) codes; however, impact on overall counts was minimal. See appendix A, "Technical Notes," in Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering: Fall 2011 (forthcoming at http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/gradpostdoc/) for additional information about the 2011 GSS field taxonomy updates.

In 2007, eligible fields were reclassified, newly eligible fields were added, and the survey was redesigned to improve coverage and coding of eligible units. "2007new" presents data as collected in 2007, and "2007old" presents data as they would have been collected in 2006. Due to methodological changes in 2007, the data collected from 2007 through 2011 are not strictly comparable to those collected prior to 2007. As a result, care should be used when assessing trends within the GSS data. Ten-year trends reported in the tables are labeled "% change 2002–11." Note that these percentages are rounded to the nearest 5% and counts are rounded to the nearest 100 to reflect the extra variability in the estimate that may have resulted from the methodological changes that occurred in 2007. Please see appendix A, "Technical Notes," in Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering: Fall 2007 (NSF 10-307) for a more detailed discussion of these changes.

Reporting of ethnicity and race in 2008–11 has been affected by changes in reporting of ethnicity and race in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Starting in 2008, IPEDS respondents were asked to use a new classification that included a category for two or more races (see http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/reic/resource.asp) and separate reporting of Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders from Asians. The new classification was optional in 2008 and 2009 IPEDS but mandatory in 2010 and may have contributed to a significant increase in reporting of "Not Hispanic or Latino, More than one race" within the GSS data.

This publication provides the first release of data from the fall 2011 cycle of the GSS. The full set of detailed statistical tables from this survey will be available in the forthcoming report Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering: Fall 2011 at http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/gradpostdoc/. Individual detailed tables may be available upon request in advance of publication of the full report. For further information, contact Kelly H. Kang.

Notes

[1] Ruth Heuer and Peter Einaudi are research analysts with RTI International. For further information, contact Kelly H. Kang, Human Resources Statistics Program, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, National Science Foundation, 4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 965, Arlington, VA 22230 (kkang@nsf.gov; 703-292-7796).

[2] The data on health fields collected in GSS are selected by NIH. These fields make up about one-third of all health fields in the U.S. Department of Education's Classification of Instructional Programs taxonomy. NIH information on trends seen within these selected health fields can be found at http://www.report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/.

[3] In the GSS, field of postdoc refers to the field of the unit that reports postdocs to the survey.