Graduate students and programs are essential to a research university, and UCI’s graduate programs are improving and growing. The total graduate and professional student enrollment of 4,925, including general campus graduate students and health sciences students, is 19.8 percent of UCI’s total enrollment, the highest percentage since the early days of the campus. Excluding health sciences (medical students and residents), 16 percent of students are graduate-level, the highest ratio of graduate students at UCI since the early 1980s.

The quality of many graduate programs at UCI is very high and is an important part of our national reputation. We have maintained that quality in the best programs and improved many others while increasing enrollments by substantially increasing the funds devoted to graduate student support: $63 million in 2003-04 compared to $30 million in 1998-99, counting fellowships, need-based aid, compensation for teaching assistants and research assistants, and graduate health insurance. Fellowship and need-based aid alone increased from $9.2 million to $18.6 million annually between 1998-99 and 2003-04. Support per student at UCI is relatively high compared to other UC campuses, yet it is still less than what will be required if we are to remain competitive with other top universities in the U.S. Selectivity of admissions and yields from offers of admission have increased in many programs, but we also must improve the time-to-degree in individual doctoral programs and the placement of their graduates, as well as the total production of doctoral degrees per faculty member. More generally, we must continue to expand graduate enrollments relative to undergraduate students if we are to continue building our academic programs and to keep pace with the best research universities.

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Last Updated: January 22, 2007