After a slight dip in 1999, the number of doctorates earned nationally was back up in 2000. Last year, a total of 41,368 were conferred in all fields, about 56 percent of them to men and about 44 percent to women.
The 2000 release of the Survey of Earned Doctorates, conducted in its present form since 1958, indicated a modest increase of 0.8 percent in the number of doctoral degrees conferred. University Graduate School dean John Wilson said the University experienced a similar trend.
But he also explained that "a Ph.D degree is a long pipeline," though the University is "very short in time to degree" compared to others.
He said that because doctoral degrees take so long to earn, and the path to them can vary significantly in length, the number of degrees awarded in a given year is not a flawless indicator of a trend.
"When talking about decisions individuals made a decade ago," Wilson said, "I wouldn't read a lot into this over a one year change."
One longer-term trend revealed by the survey concerns the sciences. While the life sciences registered a significant increase in doctorates awarded, the physical sciences have seen a steady decline. Wilson explained the trend in terms of funding.
"Government funding for research . . . has been growing almost exponentially for life sciences programs, while it's been stable in the physical sciences program," he said.
He also noted that the labor-intensive research of the life sciences has created a demand for more doctoral students in that field.
Engineering school dean James Wei said that an overall trend would be hard to notice, because "there has been a dip in the domestic students, and . . . a rise in international students, so when you look at the two of them together it's hard to say."
He also agreed that the life sciences were thriving.
"They are related more and more to the quality of life, to health, aging, illness," he said. "Besides, biology's having a lot of breakthroughs, new scientific discoveries."
Wei indicated that the engineering school will look to expand its bioengineering program. "We are targeting a lot of our new faculty hire and positions for the bioengineering aspects," he said.

No one knows for sure yet whether this year's graduate school applicant pool will be influenced by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks or the on-going war.
"I don't think any of us have a crystal ball on this," Wilson said.
Wei said he would like to see an increase in the number of domestic engineering graduate students, whose numbers he called "much too low."
He also said engineering fields like aeronautics, encryption and building structure "will come to the forefront" after the attacks, though he too thought it was too early to speculate on numbers.