Figure

II-21c: Distribution of Master’s and Professional Degree Completions among Academic Fields, 1987–2018

* Including professional practice doctorates (MD, DVM, etc.). See “About the Data” for important information about a shift in 2010 in the way the National Center for Education Statistics, the collector of these data, classifies advanced degrees in health/medical sciences.

Source: Office of Education/U.S. Department of Education, Survey of Earned Degrees, Higher Education General Information System, and Integrated Postsecondary Data System. Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (www.humanitiesindicators.org).

See the Note on the Data Used to Calculate Humanities Degree Counts and Shares and the Note on the Definition of Advanced Degrees.

Through 2009, many advanced degrees in the health/medical sciences were classified by awarding institutions not as “first professional” degrees (the way in which the National Center for Education Statistics [NCES] required M.D.’s be classified) but as doctorates. With the elimination by NCES of the generic doctoral degree category in 2010, institutions began classifying such degrees as “professional practice” doctoral degrees, which the Humanities Indicators includes in its master’s degree and professional degree counts. This change in the classification of health sciences doctorates is partly responsible for the observed increase after 2009 in the medical and health sciences’ share of master’s and professional degrees.

For an inventory of the specific degree programs that together constitute each of the academic fields as they are conceptualized by the Humanities Indicators, see the Degree Program Code Catalog.

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