About 45 percent of those entering with the aim of getting a Ph.D. actually come out with the doctorate six years later. Currently, about 40 institutions of the 61 AAU members participate. Annual data sets include basic demographic information, contextual background information, GRE scores, field of study, and financial aid data. The project is designed to provide data for departments to compare features of their programs with other programs, according to the presenter. Fields covered include biochemistry, English, economics, mathematics, chemical and mechanical engineering, history, physics, political science, and psychology.
Difficulties arise, however, in using the database to compare retention and attrition rates.
All these potential issues are confronted by researchers attempting to analyze the data, and they highlight the need for more accurate data collection. The focus of individual graduate school studies to date has been on completion rates not on attrition, according to a presenter who surveyed 250 graduate school administrators. The types of studies done reflect administrators' concerns with the practical issue of devising policies that can be acted upon in the near term. Some universities put such information on the World Wide Web. The University of Wisconsin at Madison, for instance, posts data for each department, including the size of the starting cohorts and current numbers of master's or doctorate degrees awarded.