There is a very common cyclical nature to graduate school enrollments in the United States. When the economy is weak, especially when there is a deep recession, applications to graduate programs tend to increase. The global pandemic had job market ripple effects. Direct to consumer activities (e.g., brick and mortar retail outlets, restaurants) were radically disrupted. Other sectors followed. As the chart below shows, the shock of the pandemic on total nonfarm employment (y-axis) was massive. The shaded portion on the right covers the COVID-19-induced recession. Employment counts were steadily increasing from July 2016 until the outbreak (x-axis); a dramatic fall in US employment followed, a shock from which the economy has not yet recovered.
From this alone, given past relationships between employment and graduate enrollments, one could easily predict that the enrollment cycle following the shock (applications submitted in late fall 2020 and early 2021) would have larger numbers in graduate programs.
Georgetown and most other universities are, indeed, seeing this growth, some unprecedentedly large for a one year change.
There are many media reports on this phenomenon. Strong consistent data are rare, but there are many narratives about this jump in numbers.
Some note that the COVID-19-related job losses are quite clustered in a small number of sectors. Some of the narratives are common to past return to graduate school — “I was laid off from my job and I thought it was a good time to go back to graduate school during a poor job market.”
Other reports note that many people’s work was transformed from office locations to home locations. Life on Zoom appears to be a common type of media of business activities. These employees kept their salaries intact, and often had greater discretionary time because of absence of commuting burdens to and from the office. They note that time at home allowed them to reflect on their future, to consider what skills they lacked to advance in their current career – “I knew I had to get a graduate degree to advance at my work; now was a good time.”
Still others’ reflections led them to conclude that it was time to pursue a different career – “As an actor, I didn’t feel that live theater would come back very soon; it was time to find another line of work.” This explains some of the published data that programs aimed careers that are believed to grow in the future seem to be thriving. These appear to be both technology-oriented careers, but also mental health and counseling careers.
The growth in graduate applications also appears to be connected to some changes in the admission process that were widely introduced this year. Because of the difficulty of GRE administration and growing concerns about the utility of the test, many programs dropped the requirement for a test. Other programs dropped an application fee or greatly liberalized the waiver of the fee.
Finally, this recession hit at a time when online graduate programs were much more mature than in the prior recession. Working persons seeking advancement are more frequently using their evenings and weekends (especially if one’s commute to work has disappeared) to pursue a graduate degree. They have thus built the pursuit of a higher degree into their at-home life.
As a resident of the US society, it’s great to see the educational advancement on such a scale. However, universities have to grapple with the question of how long such a surge might last. Prior experience suggests that if the job market heats up quickly, there is the threat that some of the new entrants will not complete their course of studies. If it heats up quickly, next year applicant totals may not match this year’s. On the other hand, the use of hybrid and online pedagogies might dampen this threat. Further, if we experience a slow rise out of the recession, we may have experienced a new plateau of graduate education.
The next few years will be exciting.
Interesting thoughts. Found it interesting psychology and mental health increases in applications.