My latest for Inside Higher Ed: Graduate school has become an increasingly common educational pathway; the share of U.S. adults with a graduate degree has nearly doubled over the past two decades, according to the Postsecondary Education & Economics Research (PEER) Center. But according to new research from the center, many students still do not complete their program within six years. Looking at administrative data from Texas, researchers found that only 62 percent of students who entered a graduate program between 2003–04 and 2012–13 earned a degree in six years or less. The good news is that completion rates have improved over time: While 58 percent of students who started a graduate program in Texas in 2003–04 graduated within six years, the number jumped to 68 percent for the 2012–13 cohort—a faster increase than the growth in undergraduate completion rates over a similar period. “Graduate school is in the place that undergraduates were 15 or 20 years ago,” said Jeff Denning, an associate professor at The University of Texas at Austin and co-author of the report. “Now we want to think about the success of these students—not just graduation, but also earnings and debt repayment.” #StudentSuccess #GraduateSchool #CollegeCompletion #StudentLoans https://lnkd.in/gEZiwGwB
