Number Of Doctorates Awarded Drops

Science, Engineering See Big Declines

POSTED: 5:52 p.m. EST January 7, 2003

A nationwide survey has found that 2001 was the first time in nine years that the number of doctoral degrees awarded by U.S. universities dropped below 41,000.

The National Science Foundation study also found that a significant decline in science and engineering doctorates since 1998 when total Ph.D.s reached an all-time high.

However, analysts cited a two-year turn upward in 2000-2001 graduate enrollments that could reverse the downward trend in doctorates produced in technical fields.

The study was based on data collected at 416 universities. NSF is an independent federal agency with an annual budget of nearly $5 billion that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering, as well as reporting statistical information on these broad areas of national interest.

The 2001 survey of doctorates revealed that the numbers of non-science and engineering Ph.D.s awarded since 1995 remained nearly constant, staying at just over 15,200 per year on average over the last six years. Meanwhile, technical doctorates have dropped more than 7 percent.

The survery also found that women have showed slow, steady increases in obtaining doctorates in most fields. In 2001, women were awarded about 44 percent of the doctorates overall. However, women are still underrepresented in many science and engineering fields. In 1997, women represented just 32.8 percent of the those doctorates awarded. By 2001, women had received 9,300, 36.5 percent of the total.

In the physical sciences, women still represent less than one-quarter of earned doctoral degrees and in engineering, just 16.8 percent. In physics, women have gained only 1 percentage point over 10 years, earning just 11.9 percent of the doctorates in 1992, and only 13 percent in 2001. In computer sciences, women earned 18.8 percent of the doctorates in 2001.

On the other side of the coin, women have always done well in the field of psychology, and in 2001 they passed the two-thirds mark in the total Ph.D.s awarded in that field.