I’m doing some research this afternoon for a column about leaving the ranks of the professional world to head back to school. For those of you who have read the blog or are new to blog, I’m leaving my current position as a staff writer for a public policy group in North Carolina to enter Asbury Theological Seminary to become a United Methodist Minister in the North Carolina Conference, while hoping to do some mission work in the Appalachia regions of the country.
Part of the research that I was looking for was an answer to the question of what is the average age of graduate students. After a little bit of research, I came across this report from the National Center for Education Statistics (i.e. the Department of Education’s statistics department) and a June 2006 report entitled “Student Financing of Graduate and Professional Education: 2003-04: Profiles of Students in Selected Degree Programs and Part-Time Students.”
The survey focuses data based on 11,000 graduate students enrolled between July 1, 2003 and June 30, 2004.
Here are some of the interesting statistics:
The average age of graduate students, as of Dec. 31, 2003, was 27.5. The average seminary student was 34.6. I’m currently 27 and won’t turn 28 until March, so I guess I’m average in some regards and a young pup in others.
Males outnumber females in graduate education, 53.2 percent to 46.8 percent. This is a reverse of undergraduate enrollment where females outnumber males at most higher education institutions creating discussions about why males do not enter college. In seminaries, 77 percent of the student population is male, while 23 percent is female.
Thirty-four percent of graduate students waited less than one year after receiving their bachelor’s degree before entering graduate school. For theological schools, the one-year turnaround was 15.5 percent.
Interesting, but I waited five years before entering graduate school after receiving my degree from West Virginia University in journalism in 2002. I’m not alone. Twenty-one percent of graduate students waited between 3 to 6 years, while 23.2 percent of seminary students waited in that time frame.
If you’re interested most seminary students waited more than seven years before entering seminary.
