Women Edge Past Men in Doctorates in US

15 September 2010

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This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

In the United States, about six out of ten students in graduate schools are women. The same is true of today's young adults who already have a degree beyond college. As a result, the Census Bureau expects that more women than men will hold professions such as doctors, lawyers and professors.

Men had faster growth rates than women in going to graduate school in two thousand nine. Still, women earned sixty percent of the master's degrees. That was the level of about ninety percent of all the graduate degrees awarded.

But a new report says the two thousand eight-two thousand nine academic year marked a change. Women also earned fifty and four-tenths percent of the doctorate degrees. The Council of Graduate Schools says this was the first year ever that women earned more doctorates than men.

Forty-two percent of all doctorates that year -- the largest share -- were in education, engineering, and biological and agricultural sciences. But the report says between nineteen ninety-nine and two thousand nine, graduate enrollment increased in all subjects. The fastest growth was in health sciences, business and engineering.

In two thousand nine, graduate schools reported strong growth of six percent in first-time students from the United States. But enrollment of new international students decreased by about two percent -- the first drop since two thousand four. The share of foreign new students in graduate schools fell from eighteen percent to sixteen and a half percent.