Enrollment at graduate universities across the country have increased significantly in the last decade, according to a report released Tuesday by The Council of Graduate Schools. 

The survey, which has been conducted annually for the past 22 years, compared graduate enrollment rates over the last 10 years and  is meant to give a national picture of enrollment and graduation trends, said Stuart Heiser, manager of Government Relations and External Affairs for the CGS. A total of 769 universities received the annual survey and 684 participated. 

Heiser said he could not disclose if the University of Wisconsin participated in the study but did confirm UW graduate schools are members of the CGS. 

Nationally, the number of doctorates awarded in the last year increased nine percent, compared to a two percent average yearly increase over the last decade.

“Nine percent is the largest one-year jump in doctorates awarded so far this decade,” Heiser said.

This increasing trend, which CGS contributes to a spike in international enrollment during the late ’90s, is not expected to continue in the immediate future.

Heiser said international enrollment has declined significantly since Sept. 11, 2001 but was confident it would rebound. 

Women have primarily contributed to the increase in domestic enrollment, Heiser said, doubling the annual growth of male enrollement over the last 10 years.

Judith Kornblatt, senior associate dean for Graduate Education at UW, said graduate rates at UW have stayed the same over the last decade, as total graduate enrollment has remained between 8,000 and 9,000 students every year since 1998.

 “The number of graduate students has been fairly consistent over time,” Kornblatt said. “We centrally don’t have any way of controlling how many students there are, and we don’t really have any interest.”

Unlike in undergraduate schools, there is no target number of students who get accepted. 

Students apply directly to individual UW programs, and the programs determine acceptance rates based on demands.

Unless factors like funding or professional demand change, enrollment will likely remain constant. 

One area the graduate schools are actively trying to influence is minority enrollment, Kornblatt added.

“We have partnerships with minority serving institutions, and we have faculty-to-faculty interactions to build trust [between institutions] and have their students apply here,” Kornblatt said.

Nationally, there has been a boost in numbers for minority graduate students. The yearly average growth over the past 10 years has been four percent, the report found, compared to one percent growth among white students.

“There has been a one-year growth of minority enrollment in science and engineering which is also pretty significant,” Heiser added.

Black enrollment in biological sciences rose seven percent in the last year, and American Indian enrollment grew 11 percent in engineering.