News Notes: Enrollment data

Enrollment data. The fall of 2008 saw some 14 500 students enrolled in US graduate physics programs, the highest number since 1991. A rise in the number of US citizens entering graduate programs over the past decade has bumped them back to a majority; in recent years first-year enrollment by noncitizens has held in numbers but dropped from more than half to about 44%, according to the latest Physics Enrollments report by the American Institute of Physics’ Statistical Research Center.

Some 763 departments offered physics degrees in 2008, about the same number as a decade earlier. Over that decade, 32 colleges and universities suspended or discontinued a physics program, and 33 added or reinstated one.

The number of students taking an introductory physics course in degree-granting physics departments increased by 28% between 1999 and 2008. The greatest gain (34%) was seen in algebra-based courses, followed by conceptual physics (27%). Calculus-based physics, which has the highest total enrollment, went up by 23%.

Departments that offer a master’s as the highest degree have a larger proportion of entering women than do PhD-granting departments. But the overall proportion of women among first-year physics graduate students has hovered around 20% in recent years.

The report with these and other data can be downloaded free of charge from http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/undergradtrends.html .