Women for the first time earned a majority of U.S. doctoral degrees, building on decades of gains in higher education.<\/p>\n
In the 2008-2009 school year, women received just over half of all doctorates, up from 49 percent in 2007-2008 and 44 percent in 2000, according to a report released today by the Washington-based Council of Graduate Schools, which represents more than 500 universities. The report doesn\u2019t include professional degrees in law, business and medicine.<\/p>\n
The milestone became inevitable because women have received the majority of bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees since the 1980s, building a pipeline of doctoral candidates, Nathan Bell, the council\u2019s director of research and policy analysis, said in a telephone interview. Women are building on the gains of an earlier cohort of female scholars who were pioneers, said Elizabeth Sutton, who received her Ph.D. in art history in 2009.<\/p>\n