Prestigious Grant Is a Boost for Doctoral Students

Four-and-a-half years into his clinical psychology doctoral program at the University of Cincinnati, Greg Kavanaugh, 34, is rock-bottom certain about his academic program, his career choice and even his long-term goals. 

He knows decisively that he wants to investigate how anti-depressant and anti-addiction drugs might also work for psychological disorders.  That being the case, Kavanaugh doesn’t get discouraged by the heavy workload and financial sacrifices necessary to earn his doctoral degree (which he’ll receive in about two years’ time).

Still, Kavanaugh is a rarity.  Across the country, PhD students drop out at a rate approaching 50 percent in some fields, according to the Council of Graduate Schools.  Informal conversations with students finds that classroom workloads and the most basic needs for money, housing, food as well as family responsibilities (remember that PhD students typically range in age from their mid-20s to their late 30s) are serious barriers for those completing their doctorates. 

That’s among the reasons a new partnership among some of the country’s elite graduate programs – led by the Council of Graduate Schools – is seeking to understand and diminish the obstacles that PhD students face while boosting the numbers of doctoral students able to persevere and complete their degrees.

The first aim of the three-year, $2.6 million grant collectively awarded to UC and 20 other universities will be to pinpoint and then target those impediments commonly hindering degree completion.  “All the admitted students are able to do the work so something else is happening to prevent students from completing their degrees,” according to Howard Jackson, university dean of the graduate school at UC.

Among the others receiving the grants are the University of California – Los Angeles, Cornell University, Duke University, the University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign, University of Notre Dame, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, Princeton University and Yale University.  These research partners will all share their findings and the results of their intervention efforts. 

UC will begin its innovative, longitudinal survey effort, interviewing and tracking PhD students in the College of Medicine, College of Engineering, Psychology, Criminal Justice and English and Comparative Literature during fall 2005.  These are among the most popular of the university’s doctoral programs though there are more than 50 such programs in all, enrolling close to 1,500 students.  

In addition, UC has committed to surveying the students beyond the three years of the grant and will continue the longitudinal study for a total of ten years.  Intervention programs will be implemented throughout that time, and in fact, some are already ongoing: 

• Graduate Recruitment Weekend during which UC’s graduate programs host prospective students;

• The Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Project in which UC took the lead in Ohio to provide access to graduate theses and dissertations via the Web, thus allowing prospective students to judge the range of research and quality of work at institutions around the state;

• Early professional experiences for doctoral students.  Instead of a lock-step program where students typically complete all their coursework before moving on to independent research, UC offers beginning PhD students hands-on research relevant to their field so that students can decide, early on, if a particular career track is really for them.

“Also, at the College of Medicine, the first-year PhDs may be admitted to a program where they do internships in a number of departments.  Then, they can make a well-informed choice as to the best fit for each of them,” explained Jackson.  He went on, “In this study, we have a firm goal of increasing the PhD completion rate by ten percent in each of the participating programs.”

The research and best practices to be shared among the universities will benefit the country’s institutions, students and taxpayers too.  “We’re talking about saving real time and real money for the taxpayer, universities and students.  When PhD students drop out, there’s the financial drain in the form of the graduate tuition and stipend which is generally funded by a mix of state and federal funds, university and department funds.  That’s not to mention the tremendous investment of time by the student and by faculty,” stated Jackson.

Improvements to PhD education are key to retaining doctoral students, according to Caroline Kayser, 25, a PhD student in civil engineering.  She pointed out, “All your friends are working and have lives.  You also have the opportunity to be in the work force.  I think about that when it gets really hard – that I could just leave.  That’s not an option on the undergraduate level, but it’s certainly a temptation at the doctoral level.  It’s something universities need to be aware of.”   

This kind of qualitative information – along with quantitative survey information – will be compiled by UC’s nationally respected Institute for Policy Research and distributed nationally as part of the study.  The $2.6 million CGS grant is supported by Pfizer Inc. and the Ford Foundation.

PhD completion rates among participating UC programs:

Across the nation, up to 50 percent of PhD students in certain fields drop out before completing their degrees.  Currently at UC, completion rates among UC’s most popular PhD programs stand at:

• College of Medicine – 66.8 percent
• College of Engineering – 57.7 percent
• Psychology – 64.3 percent
• Criminal Justice – 62.3 percent
• English and Comparative Literature – 69.2 percent