Of the 50 universities in the United States that awarded the most doctorates in 2025, only 11 universities awarded more doctorates to women than to men.
In 2025, 19,655 American women earned research doctorates, an all-time high. But there was a wide gender disparity in doctoral awards in specific disciplines. Less than one third of all doctorates in mathematics, engineering, and computer science were awarded to women.
Scharay Drenaena-Burnett, Amy Katherine Doerr, Paulette Kay Iliff, Lorrie Lin Hood, Kelly Kay Turner (Hoover), and Taylor Marie Nicks are the first women to graduate with bachelor's degrees through the University of Wyoming Pathways from Prison program.
In 2024, women earned 26.6 percent of all bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in engineering. Women were most represented among graduates in the environmental and biomedical disciplines. They were least represented among graduates in electrical and mechanical disciplines.
Among women who entered college in fall 2019, 64.3 percent completed their degree by 2025. For their male peers, only 58.1 percent completed their degree within six-years.
Thanks to an ongoing partnership between the California Department of Corrections and California State University, Los Angeles, a group of 22 women at the California Institution for Women have earned a bachelor's degree in liberal studies. They are the university's first graduating class of incarcerated women.
There are over 5.9 million more women than men in the United States that hold at least a bachelor's degree. While women hold a larger share in master's degree attainment, men still hold a larger share of Americans with professional degrees and doctorates.
For 2023 doctoral recipients who had a job offer, 41.5 percent of women had accepted positions in the academic arena. In 2008, 58.2 percent of women who earned doctorates had secured an academic appointment by the time they were awarded their doctoral degree.
While women earned 47 percent of all doctorates awarded by universities in the United States, there was a huge gender gap in many specific disciplines.
If we exclude data for foreign students and restrict the data to U.S. citizens and permanent residents of this country, we find that 18,893 women earned doctorates in 2023. This was 53.1 percent of all doctoral recipients among U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
