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Graduate School at UC: Rising Applications, Rising Enrollment, Record-Setting Numbers of Degrees Awarded 


UC’s Graduate School, the academic home of the university’s master’s and doctoral students, has just released its annual report for fiscal year 2008. It was a year that made history, with the highest number of master’s and doctoral degrees ever awarded.

Date: 10/7/2008 12:00:00 AM
By: M.B. Reilly
Phone: (513) 556-1824
Photos By: Lisa Ventre

UC ingot  

The University of Cincinnati Graduate School set a record pace in fiscal year 2008, which ran from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008.

Fikile Mtshiya
Engineering graduate student Fikile Mtshiya demonstrates heat reflection generated by varying roof surfaces, including a green roof.

The academic home of all of UC’s 8,310 master’s and doctoral students saw a record number of UC graduate students receive diplomas in the past year: 2,431 degrees were awarded, with 410 of these (also a record) being doctoral degrees. That’s according to the just-released Graduate School annual report.


The Graduate School Setting Records

  • UC awarded the largest number of advanced degrees in its history last year: 2431 all told. That’s a 53.4 percent increase from fiscal year 2004 when 1,584 degrees were awarded.
  • In fiscal year 2008, 410 of these degrees were doctorates, also a record.


These record-setting numbers mark a general upward trend that characterizes UC’s graduate school applications, enrollment, matriculation, scholarship support, stipend support and more. Using fiscal years 2004 and 2008 as comparison time periods, here are the figures:


Applications

  • Graduate education applications stood at 11,200 in fiscal year 2008, up from 10,366 in fiscal year 2004, an 8 percent increase.


Enrollment

  • Overall graduate education enrollment stood at 8,310 in fiscal year 2008, up from 7,231 in fiscal year 2004, a 14.9 percent increase.
  • Minority student enrollment has risen 13.9 percent since fiscal year 2004. That year, minority graduate student enrollment stood at 711. This past year, it was 910.


Financial support

  • Support for graduate student stipends has risen 15.7 percent, from more than $9.5 million in fiscal year 2004 to more than $11 million this past fiscal year.


Cynthia Lehr
UC graduate student Cynthia Lehr leads a class at Clark Montessori High School.

The dramatic rise in graduate enrollment at UC mirrors short-term and long-term national trends. According to The Greentree Gazette, a higher-education business magazine, total U.S. graduate enrollment increased 3 percent from 2006 to 2007. Graduate school enrollment in U.S. schools by international students rose 7 percent during that same period.

Over the past ten years (1997 to 2007), the same growth trends hold true. From 1997 to 2007, international student enrollment growth in U.S. graduate programs has averaged 5 percent annually. Total enrollment growth in U.S. doctoral programs has averaged 3 percent annually from 1997 to 2007.

Neville Pinto, dean of The Graduate School at UC, said these increases at UC and nationally are driven by a broad and strong demand for a workforce with higher skill levels.

 

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