5 Things to Know About the Latest Recipients of Math Ph.D.s

When West Virginia University’s administration proposed nixing the college’s graduate programs in mathematics this summer, resistance to the recommendation cropped up almost instantly.

Critics questioned the rationale behind shutting down the state’s only math Ph.D. program. What would happen to the faculty whose jobs were slated to disappear? And, they wondered, could an institution even be classified as an R1 university without a Ph.D. program in math?

But such concerns didn’t stop West Virginia’s Board of Governors from ultimately cutting the university’s graduate programs in math last month — along with two dozen other majors and programs — as part of what leaders said was a wide-scale effort to cut costs at the institution that expects to face a multimillion-dollar deficit this fiscal year.

The decision, which turned math at the university into an undergraduate-only pursuit, raises questions about the state of the discipline at the graduate level. New data from the National Science Foundation provides some insight into the demographics of recent doctoral graduates and the institutions that produced them.

According to the Survey of Earned Doctorates, 1,457 Ph.D.s in regular and applied mathematics were awarded in the 2021-22 academic year, which saw the number of doctorate conferrals overall reach a record high after recovering from pandemic-related delays in graduation. The number of math Ph.D.s was up 15.5 percent from a year earlier; about three in four of the math Ph.D. recipients were men.

The annual census of graduate students reveals much more information about the 2,144 graduates who earned Ph.D.s in the broad field of math and statistics, which covers graduates who earned doctorates in either of the disciplines. Here’s what we know about those recipients: