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Number of Awarded Doctorates Declines
The total number of doctorates awarded by U.S. universities fell in 2002, according to the Survey of Earned Doctorates, an annual census of doctoral recipients funded by six federal agencies. The 2002 total was the lowest since 1993; it represents a 2 percent decline since 2001 and a 6 percent decline since 1998. Despite the overall drop, the long-term trend has been “considerable expansion” in the number of research doctorates awarded, says the National Opinion Research Center, which administers the study.
Also in 2002, upward trends continued in the percentage of doctorates earned by women and racial and ethnic minorities. For the first time, a majority of doctorates earned by U.S. citizens were earned by women, and minorities earned almost 19 percent of doctorates earned by U.S. citizens. Women are most heavily concentrated in the fields of education, social sciences, and humanities, while they are underrepresented in the physical sciences and engineering.
Of doctorates awarded by American universities to noncitizens, the highest number went to citizens of the People’s Republic of China and South Korea. The complete survey is available online at www.norc.org.
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