College Degree Round UP

Up dated and Revised with new data August 2013

College Degree Round Up

American colleges and universities continue to turn out graduates, and in ever increasing numbers. In the year ending June 2011, the last year of complete data, the National Center for Education Statistics at the United States Department of Education reported 942,327 graduates receiving associates degrees, 1,715,913 receiving Baccalaureate degrees, 730,635 receiving master's degrees, 73,848 receiving doctoral degrees, and 95,749 receiving professional degrees. Professional degrees include medical, pharmacy, veterinary, law and theology. All degrees are up from the previous year.

In 1900 the decennial census counted that year's college graduates; 27,410 received Baccalaureate Degrees from degree granting colleges. After reaching 186,500 in 1940, BA degrees climbed to 432,048 in 1950 when WWII veterans began taking advantage of the GI Bill of Rights and entered college in large numbers. Earned degrees declined some later in the 1950's; but surpassed all earlier numbers by 1964. Earned baccalaureate degrees jumped to 792,316 in June of 1970; 900 thousand in 1973; 1 million in 1989. In June 2000, 1,237,875 earned Baccalaureate degrees from accredited degree granting colleges and universities. The total of 2011 degrees, associate, masters, doctorate, and first-time professional in addition to the 1,715,913 BA degrees mentioned above came to 3,558,472 for the year ending June 2011.

Growth Rates

The numbers receiving United State College degrees continue to grow at a 2.86 percent annual average rate over the last 20 years; more than double the growth rate for the adult population and more than double the growth rate of the civilian labor force. The rate applies to the total of degrees granted from U.S. colleges and universities: associate, baccalaureate, masters, doctorates and first professional degrees. In this way America is getting better educated with a better educated workforce.

Growth rates vary widely by sex and by level of degree. Women have higher growth rates in all degree levels going back to 1990. Women were 41 percent of BA degrees in 1970 but they make up 57.2 percent of the degrees in 2011 leaving 42.8 percent to men. In 2011, women graduates out numbered the men in associates, baccalaureate, masters and doctorate degrees. Men hold a slight edge in professional degrees, but that has fallen to less than 2 thousand a year. For the past twenty years the growth rate of women degree candidates in professions, primarily law and medicine, was 5 times that of men. Women will soon be the majority in the professions.

The master's degree has the highest annual growth rate at 3.94 percent starting from June 1990. The rate for women is 4.54 percent; for men 3.16 percent. Associates degrees are second with a growth rate of 3.41 percent a year, but the growth rate is the combination of a 3.04 percent for men and a 3.66 percent women.

The 73,848 who received doctoral degrees is the highest ever. The doctorate holds third place in growth rate at 3.2 percent per year from 1990 to 2011. Women have a higher growth rate at 4.8 percent compared to 1.11 percent for men. Women doctorates were just slightly over a thousand a year in 1960, but women passed men in 2007 and every year since with 37,163 in 2011.

Baccalaureate degrees hold fourth place at an annual growth rate 2.27 percent. That means almost 664,569 more degrees in 2011 than 1990. Again growth rates for women are higher than men: 2.57 percent for women, 1.90 percent for men.

The slowest annual growth of all comes in first professional degrees with an annual growth rate of only 1.44 percent. Medical Doctor, also known as the MD degree, has the low growth rate of professional degrees: .57 percent. Among other medical specialties podiatry has negative growth, chiropractic medicine and optometry have low growth: .1 percent and .86 percent. None of these other medical degrees are as important to the country as the MD degree where America's medical schools turned out just 16,863 graduates in 2011, which is just 925 more than 1985-86. Veterinary medicine has higher growth than the MD degree, although lower numbers. Pharmacy degrees have the highest growth rate among first professional degrees. Pharmacy is the third leading first time professional degree with 12,274 thousand graduates in 2011 compared to 1,244 in 1990. Outside of medicine, law degrees continue to grow at a slow but steady pace of .79 percent a year with 44,445 graduates in 2011, just 100 more than last year. Theology has negative growth with 5,832 graduates in 2011.

Degree Program Details 2011

The National Center for Education Statistics defines individual degree programs within a hierarchy of programs defined as part of its Classification of Instructional Programs, or CIP for short. Individual degrees are grouped as part of related degrees in a broader group of functional levels. For example, civil engineering is an instructional degree program within the broader functional level, engineering. Political science is an instructional degree program within the broader functional level, social science.

Associates degrees, were up 942,327 in 2011 as mentioned above. The National Center for Education Statistics first started reporting associates degrees in June of 1966 when they were 111,607 graduates. They have increased with almost every year bigger than the last. Degrees in liberal arts and science, general studies and humanities continue to grow with 306,670 degrees in 2011, which was 32.5 percent of associates degrees and more than any other field of study. Health professions hold second place with 201,831; business degrees have third place with 121,728 degrees. Many with associate’s degrees go on to finish baccalaureate degrees but many associates degree have career oriented degrees that could be terminal degrees for entry level training. Personal and culinary services, criminal justice and corrections, mechanics and repairers are three degrees with 83,150 graduates in 2011 and specific entry skills to begin a career. Computer and information sciences and support services continued a fifth year of increase with 37,677 degrees, 77 percent men. The total remains below the 46 thousand degrees of 2003. Many of the technical programs in nursing, health, engineering and architecture provide entry skills, but also a beginning path to baccalaureate or advanced degree training.

Baccalaureate degrees were up to 1,715,913 for the year ending June 2011. The National Center for Education Statistics reports at least one degree in 870 different Baccalaurette instructional degree programs, also known as fields of study, or majors. Business baccalaureate programs had the highest percentage of total BA degrees: 21.3 percent. Social science degrees including history, political science, sociology, economics and history was second with 177,174 degrees, or 10.3 percent of BA degrees, relatively more important than third place health care and related occupations with 143,430 and 8.36 percent of BA degrees. Health care and related professions has a 5 year average increase with 10,291 degrees, the highest of the broad BA degree fields of study and therefore higher than business with 9,410, and social sciences with 3,132.

No other field of study with BA degrees has as much as 7 percent of degrees. Education has 103,992 at 6.06 percent, primarily elementary education. Psychology has 100,893 at 5.88 percent of degrees. Biology and life sciences, and visual and performing arts have over 5 percent, and communications, journalism and related studies have 4.85 percent. Important degrees in computer and information sciences have only 43,072 BA degrees, just 2.51 percent of the total; engineering did a little better with 76,376 BA degrees, a 4.45 percent share. However, computer and information sciences have a negative 5 year average increase. Several BA fields of study show a 20 year decline: English language and literature and mathematics and statistics and the BA in education, although all three continue with significant numbers:

Masters degrees were up for the year as they have every year for more than a decade. At least one degree reported for 845 different degree programs, but degrees tend to be concentrated in a few fields. Like the Baccalaureate degree the masters degree in business holds first place with 187,213 master’s degrees and 114,065 of the degrees in the single program, the MBA degree. Business has 25.6 percent of master’s degrees. Education master’s degrees hold second place with 185,009 in 95 degree programs. All masters degrees in educational specialties are 25.3 percent of all master’s degrees for the year ending June 2011.

Education is a degree level where there are more master’s degrees than baccalaureate degrees. Library science, social work, and counseling also have more masters than baccalaureate degrees. Library science had 96 BA degrees; 7,727 masters degrees for 2011. In education for nearly all the public schools teachers that earn masters degree in educational specialties open career opportunities teaching in specialized programs and move to a higher pay scale. The master degree is often directly tied with career opportunity and advancement.

Health professions holds third place with 75,579 masters degrees, 10.3 percent of the total. The largest master’s degree training occurs in nursing with 9,132 MSN degrees compared to 75,579 at the BA degree level. Public health is next with 5,293 degrees and health care administration and management is third place with 5,687 degrees.

There were 38,719 masters degrees reported in 42 engineering degree programs. Computer and information services specialties had 19,446 master’s degrees, up from only 13,063 in 2009, but less than the 20,143 high in 2004. It has fewer degrees than social work which had 21,084 degrees, despite higher job prospects and salaries in computer and information services. Chemistry leads physical science degrees, but with only 2,272 degrees. Mathematics had 5,843 master’s degrees but both math and science are small compared to business, education and health professions masters degrees.

Doctoral degrees were up to 73,848 for the year ending June 2011. Annual growth rates continue to be very high with a five year average increase of 3,556. Doctoral candidates are up every year for over a decade. The health professions had 14,681 doctorates, or 19.9 percent of doctorates for the year. The total does not include the MD degree, which is a professional degree. Second place goes to education with 9,623 doctorates and 13.0 percent of the total. Engineering had 8,369 PhD’s, or 11.3 percent of doctorates. Biology and biomedical sciences 7,693 degrees, or 10.4 percent of doctorates; physical sciences 5,295 degrees, or 7.2 percent of doctorates. The biological and physical sciences have a higher share of doctorates than they do for baccalaureate degree programs. Specialties in psychology in 22 programs with at least one degree totaled 5,851 doctorates. In the social sciences, economics, political science, sociology and history have the largest share of the 4,390 social science doctorates. Business has only 2,286 doctorates, mostly the DBA. English language and literature shows a decline since 1970, but modest growth since 1990 with 1,056 doctorates in 1990 and 1,344 in 2011.

Percentage Distribution of All Degrees Granted for the Year Ending June 2010

1. Business, management, marketing - - - makes up 22.0% of all degrees
2. Education - - - makes up 11.8% of all degrees
3. Social Sciences, and history, lib-arts, general-studies, multi-disciplinary - - - 12.0%
4. Health Professions - - - 9.3%
5. Physical sciences, Biological and Biomedical sciences - - - 5.8%
6. Psychology - - - 5.2%
7. Engineering - - - 4.9%
8. Visual and performing arts - - - 4.4%
9. English language/literature/letters, Area & ethnic stud, Foreign languages - - - 4.0%
10. Communication, journalism, and related programs - - - 3.7%
11. Public administration and social service professions - - - 2.6%
12. Computer science - - - 2.5%
13. Homeland security, law enforcement, and firefighting - - - 2.2%
14. Parks, recreation, leisure and fitness studies - - - 1.7%
15. Philosophy and religious studies, Theology and Religious Vocations - - - 1.6%
16. Natural resources and Agriculture - - - 1.4%
17. Family and consumer sciences/human sciences - - - 1.0%
18. Mathematics and Statistics - - - 1.0%
19. Engineering technologies/technicians - - - .9%
20. Architecture - - - .7%
21. Law and Legal studies - - - .4%
22. Library science - - - .3%
23. Communications technologies/technicians and support services - - -.2%
24. Transportation and materials moving technologies - - -.3%