The future of graduate education: as graduate student demographics change, institutions also must change to keep pace

University Business, August, 2004 by John Ebersole

Graduate education is growing in importance and will increasingly be seen as a prerequisite for access to society's better jobs. By the year 2008, more of such study will be part-time, online, involve credentials other than traditional degrees, and be dominated by female students over age 35. Two factors, working in tandem, are adding fuel to this growing demand: an explosion in new knowledge, particularly technical knowledge; and, somewhat paradoxically, the growing obsolescence of knowledge. As these students will use their degrees to enhance their education and advance their careers, universities need to be prepared for a changing student body and be ready to meet their demands.

It is estimated that today's college graduates are exposed to more facts in one year than their grandparents were in a lifetime. According to Twigg and Oblinger (The Virtual University, 1997), the sum of all that is known is now doubling every seven years. With this explosion has come a continuing need to evaluate the continued relevance of prior learning. This is a particular problem in technical fields where the pace of new discovery is constantly accelerating. Within the fields of science, engineering, and even business, it is estimated that much of what undergraduates learn in four to five years of college will be obsolete by the time they graduate.

Given the rising cost of education, those pursuing graduate degrees will increasingly study part-time while remaining employed. This is due to the fact that nearly 20 percent of all graduate and first-professional students get some tuition support from their employers (80 percent for those in Fortune 500 companies). Additionally, there is the "opportunity cost" of giving up income for the period of full-time study. When faced with the $107,000 price tag for Duke's International MBA, for instance, many may need both the boss's support and a paycheck.

The need to continue working while going to school has added to the appeal of anytime, anywhere online learning. It is estimated that 90 percent of public institutions, and 55 percent of privates, are now offering some instruction online, with half of these offering entire degrees (Sloan Consortium Study, 2003). The educational research firm Eduventures reports that online graduate programs are the fastest growing category of new offerings; nearly all of America's name institutions now offer some programming in this format.

The 2003 Sloan study ("Sizing the Opportunity: The Quality and Extent of Online Education in the U.S., 2002-2003") found that "a majority of academic leaders (57 percent) believe that learning outcomes for online education are equal to or superior to those of face-to-face instruction." Of those surveyed, nearly three-quarters felt that this would be true within three years. Universities should expect exponential demand and growth for this form of learning.

According to futurists Michael Dolence and David Norris (Transforming Higher Education, 1995), each individual in the workforce will need to accumulate learning equivalent to that associated with 30 credit hours of instruction, every seven years, if they are to remain competent and competitive in the face of the knowledge explosion described earlier. Thus, future graduate students may increasingly study part-time and online, but may not necessarily be seeking a degree. Many will already hold a master's or doctorate. Instead of another degree, they will seek a post-baccalaureate "certificate" or a "professional diploma." These relatively new types of credentials will document the holder's efforts to remain current within a given professional area and that they have completed a specific curriculum, albeit less than that required for a graduate degree.

The graduate student of the future will be older and increasingly female. Already, we see that 68 percent of those enrolled in part-time graduate study are 30 years of age, or older. Further, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported last August that 57 percent of full-time and 62 percent of part-time graduate enrollments are women. Additionally, the Department of Education's projections through 2013 show women earning graduate or first-professional degrees at significantly higher rates than men, i.e., doctorate degrees show a 20 percent increase for women, and less than one percent for men. First-professional degrees are expected to increase by 26 percent for women and 16 percent for men. These statistics are thought to reflect the larger numbers of women in education and health care, two of the largest areas for graduate study and the fact that women are entering the workforce in growing numbers. Also, there are currently two million fewer men than women enrolled in higher education. This gap is projected to increase over the next eight years.

What do these differences mean for university administrators and their campuses? From a program perspective, it suggests a need to offer more "blended" programs. That is, course offerings that combine online instruction with face-to-face interaction. Additionally, there is likely to be an increased need for classrooms on weekends and evenings, as welt as at off-campus locations.