While overall total Graduate School enrollment increased just 1.8 percent, from 3,938 in fall 1997 to 4,010 this fall, the entering class enrollment rose 14.7 percent, from 1,164 to 1,335. The increase overall this year reverses a trend of decreasing Graduate School enrollments that began in 1992, said Walter I. Cohen, vice provost and dean of the Graduate School. Increases in this fall's entering class in the physical sciences were even more dramatic. There were 262 doctoral students in the entering class in the physical sciences, compared with 162 in fall 1997, for a 61.7 percent increase. The percentage of all entering physical sciences graduate students increased by 23.9 percent this fall, with 529 entering this year compared with 427 last fall.
Graduate students play a crucial role in the intellectual life of undergraduates and faculty alike.
I'm, therefore, especially pleased that we have been able to reverse the decline in graduate enrollment that has marked the 1990s and to strengthen what already were very strong programs. The credit for this turnaround belongs to the faculty. And I think it likely that graduate enrollment will continue to rise over the next few years. An expanded doctoral fellowship program for science and engineering also contributed to the enrollment increase. Cohen said he had hoped to increase the fellowships from 20 to 100, but in the final tally 72 fellowship offers were accepted, for a net increase of 52.