Altruistic Subjects Top List of Grad School Programs, Says GradSchools.com

Business Wire, Jan 3, 2005

CHESTER, Pa. -- The nation's graduate students are moving away from business and technology degrees toward fields that involve helping others, according to a recent review of the traffic to GradSchools.com, a graduate school database. This may come as a surprise to some industry experts as MBAs and electrical and computer engineering have been the most popular fields of interest for graduate students since 1997.

According to the traffic review, students were more interested in MBAs than any other graduate degree in 1997-1998. In 2000-2002, MBA moved to second as the electrical and computer engineering fields became the most searched. Now, MBA and engineering have been pushed out of the top five to make way for more altruistic degrees like social work and physical therapy.

"The dramatic interest in altruistic degrees post 9/11 clearly demonstrates a shift in the mindset of graduate school applicants," says higher education expert Mark Shay, president and CEO of GradSchools.com. "Students are moving away from technology degrees toward fields that involve helping others. This particular trend becomes compounded by a decreased interest in American universities by foreign students, as they traditionally favor business and engineering programs."

From 1999-2000 computer science was at least fourth on the list of the top 20 most searched graduate fields of study. In 2004 computer science was not even on the list. Instead, clinical psychology was number one, followed by social work, physical therapy, history and psychology.

"Graduate degree trends tend to change every few years," says Shay. "We saw a similar shift with the rise of business and information degrees during the height of dot com popularity, and we anticipate further change as students continue to react to the world around them."

GradSchools.com

GradSchools.com is the Internet's leading source of graduate school information. It helps students find their ideal graduate school through a comprehensive directory of colleges and programs organized by subject, school and location. Gradschools.com is a service of Educational Directories Unlimited, Inc. (EDU), a leading Internet company serving higher education. Based in suburban Philadelphia, EDU's steady growth since its inception in 1989 has led to its inclusion in the Philadelphia 100 and Inc. 500 lists of fastest growing businesses.