Academe has gotten used to bad news when it comes to statistics on how many doctoral students actually finish their Ph.D.'s, but a landmark study of doctoral-completion rates has turned up some optimistic results: American universities appear to be getting better at retaining their Ph.D. students.
That is one of the main findings of a new book, Ph.D. Completion and Attrition, released today by the Council of Graduate Schools.
The book, which is the first monograph in a series to be published as part of the council’s Ph.D. Completion Project, reports that a quarter of doctoral students who entered Ph.D. programs in the 1996-97 academic year had dropped out by their fifth year of study.
By contrast, students who enrolled in doctoral programs in 2000 had an easier time sticking around past the fourth year. Only 19 percent of them had left by year five, the book says.
Those numbers are significant, said Lewis Siegel, a dean in residence at the council, because most Ph.D. students who abandon their doctoral programs do so before the fifth year.
“More than two-thirds of the students who will ultimately withdraw have done so by the end of their fourth year,” said Mr. Siegel. “You have a much higher chance of completing if you’ve gotten through the four years.” In other words, attrition rates seem to be slowly but steadily improving over time.
Graduate schools have been struggling for years to stanch the flow of graduate students who abandon their Ph.D. programs, and the council’s data suggest that something has been working. Now the question is, What is that something?
Later stages of the Ph.D. Completion Project will try to answer just that.
The new book reports data collected from doctoral programs at about 30 universities over a time span of roughly 10 years. It analyzes the differences between doctoral completion and attrition rates across fields and subfields, and for different institutional types and class sizes. (The Chronicle reported on many of the findings that went into the book in July.) Now, having reported those statistics, the council hopes to study how to change them.
“This is just the baseline,” said Robert Sowell, the council’s vice president for programs and operations. “This is where we start.”
In the next stages of the project, which is set to last until 2010, the participating universities will try to test the effects of various strategies and interventions—like increasing the use of mentors, adopting family-friendly policies, and modifying admissions practices—on completion and attrition rates.
The council also plans to release statistics on Ph.D. completion and attrition rates broken down by gender, race, and citizenship in the spring.
More data from the book can be found on the council’s Web site.