Universities Weblog

Inside Higher Ed reported recently that attrition rate for students in Ph.D. programs seem to be going down. Except in the humanities, where getting that doctorate is still as hard as ever.

The Council of graduate schools completed a major study recently on the issue of degree completion among doctoral students. Inside Higher Ed reported that

The finding on attrition is significant because one of the major reasons for the study and one of the top concerns in graduate schools is that so many students never finish - leaving some fields facing shortages of doctorates and leaving many students who drop out feeling like they wasted years of their lives. The data on Ph.D. attrition rates are part of a larger analysis of 10 years of statistics on who starts and finishes Ph.D. programs.

The study showed that for some reason it takes much longer to finish a Ph.D. in the humanities than in other academic disciplines.

Engineering and life sciences doctoral candidates tend to complete their degrees the most quickly according to the study. Social science Ph.D. programs seem to take longer - but not as long as humanities programs. In Engineering and life sciences, most candidates finish in less than seven years. In the humanities most candidates take more than ten years to complete their doctoral program.

Did you enjoy this article?