The other courses may be taken from any of the graduate schools at Penn. Preliminary examination Students must pass the preliminary examination in order to proceed on to their dissertation proposal. Students must demonstrate a familiarity with the literature of higher education, a foundation-level knowledge of the enterprise of higher education, and the ability to design a research study which seeks to answer a research question concerned with some aspect of higher education. The preliminary exam is offered in both the fall and spring terms. The dissertation is a book-length presentation of original research relating to the enterprise of higher education.
Students working on the dissertation full-time typically finish it in between one and three years.