In an impressive increase from years past, 40.1 percent of women in the United States had completed four years or more of college in 2024. This figure is up from 3.8 percent of women in 1940. A significant increase can also be seen in males, with 37.1 percent of the U.S. male population having completed four years or more of college in 2024, up from 5.5 percent in 1940. 4- and 2-year colleges In the United States, college students are able to choose between attending a 2-year postsecondary program and a 4-year postsecondary program. Generally, attending a 2-year program results in an Associate’s Degree, and 4-year programs result in a Bachelor’s Degree. Many 2-year programs are designed so that attendees can transfer to a college or university offering a 4-year program upon completing their Associate’s. Completion of a 4-year program is the generally accepted standard for entry-level positions when looking for a job. Earnings after college Factors such as gender, degree achieved, and the level of postsecondary education can have an impact on employment and earnings later in life. Some Bachelor’s degrees continue to attract more male students than female, particularly in STEM fields, while liberal arts degrees such as education, languages and literatures, and communication tend to see higher female attendance. All of these factors have an impact on earnings after college, and despite nearly the same rate of attendance within the American population between males and females, men with a Bachelor’s Degree continue to have higher weekly earnings on average than their female counterparts.

In the academic year of 2021/22, about 835,320 male and almost 1.18 million female students earned a bachelor's degree in the United States. By the academic year of 2031/32, the number of male bachelor's degree recipients is expected to reach 975,020. Bachelor’s degrees in the United States American students typically earn a Bachelor’s degree for an undergraduate course of study and it is normally completed in four years. Depending on the major, students receive a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Business Administration, Bachelor of Fine Arts, or another type of certificate. In 2021, about 1.17 million white students earned a Bachelor's degree, followed by 324,848 Hispanic students. Bachelor's degrees and earnings When looking at the mean income of Bachelor’s degree holders in 2021, there are marked differences between the female and male Bachelor’s degree holders. Men with a Bachelor’s degree earned about 107,315 U.S. dollars per year, compared to women, who earned 77,099 U.S. dollars per year. In addition, salaries tended to increase the more educated a person was.

Graph and download economic data for Ratio of Female to Male Tertiary School Enrollment for the United States (SEENRTERTFMZSUSA) from 1971 to 2022 about enrolled, ratio, tertiary schooling, females, males, education, and USA.

The proportion of male and female postsecondary graduates, by Classification of Instructional Programs, Primary groupings (CIP_PG), International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) and age group.

In all 25 OECD countries listed here, completion rates from bachelor's programs were higher among women than among men. The share of women who completed their bachelor's degree within the theoretical time frame varied from ** percent in Colombia to ** percent in the United Kingdom. Among men, students in the United Kingdom had the highest completion rates.

College Majors and their Graduates

Job Opportunities, Salaries and Gender Disparities

By FiveThirtyEight [source]

About this dataset

This repository contains a comprehensive selection of lavish data and processing scripts behind the articles, graphics, and interactive experiences generated by FiveThirtyEight. With this dataset, you'll have the power to explore college programs and their graduates like never before and create stories of your own! Whether you use it to check our work or craft your own powerful visuals, we would absolutely love to know if you found it useful. Under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License and MIT License respectively, our data is available for anyone who chooses to use it. Let us know how our resources turned out at

More Datasets

For more datasets, click here.

Featured Notebooks

• 🚨 Your notebook can be here! 🚨!

Research Ideas

• Create an interactive comparison tool for researching college majors and their earning potential, so that prospective students can make informed decisions about what to study.
• Analyze the proportions of male and female graduates across different majors to uncover gender disparities in higher education.
• Explore the correlations between major categories, average salaries earned by graduates from specific major categories, unemployment rates for those with specific majors and more – to identify trends in job opportunities for certain specialties of study

Acknowledgements

If you use this dataset in your research, please credit the original authors. Data Source

License

License: CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) - Public Domain Dedication No Copyright - You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. See Other Information.

Columns

File: majors-list.csv | Column name | Description | |:-------------------|:----------------------------------------------------| | FOD1P | First-level division of the field of study (String) | | Major | The specific major of the field of study (String) | | Major_Category | The broader category of the field of study (String) |

File: recent-grads.csv | Column name | Description | |:-------------------------|:-------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Major | The specific major of the field of study (String) | | Rank | The rank of the major in terms of popularity (Integer) | | Major_code | The code associated with the major (Integer) | | Major_category | The category of the major (String) | | Total | The total number of students in the major (Integer) | | Sample_size | The sample size of the major (Integer) | | Men | The number of male students in the major (Integer) | | Women | The number of female students in the major (Integer) | | ShareWomen | The percentage of female students in the major (Float) | | Employed | The number of employed graduates from the major (Integer) | | Full_time | The number of full-time employed graduates from the major (Integer) | | Part_time | The number of part-time employed graduates from the major (Integer) | | Full_time_year_round | The number of full-time year-round employed graduates from the major (Integer) | | Unemployed | The number of unemployed graduates from the major (Integer) | | Unemployment_rate | The unemployment rate of graduates from the major (Float) | | Median | The median salary of graduates from the major (Integer) | | P25th | The 25th percentile salary of graduates from the major (Integer) | | P75th | The 75th percentile salary of graduates from the major (Integer) | | College_jobs | The number of college jobs held by graduates from the major...

In 2022, about 37.7 percent of the U.S. population who were aged 25 and above had graduated from college or another higher education institution, a slight decline from 37.9 the previous year. However, this is a significant increase from 1960, when only 7.7 percent of the U.S. population had graduated from college. Demographics Educational attainment varies by gender, location, race, and age throughout the United States. Asian-American and Pacific Islanders had the highest level of education, on average, while Massachusetts and the District of Colombia are areas home to the highest rates of residents with a bachelor’s degree or higher. However, education levels are correlated with wealth. While public education is free up until the 12th grade, the cost of university is out of reach for many Americans, making social mobility increasingly difficult. Earnings White Americans with a professional degree earned the most money on average, compared to other educational levels and races. However, regardless of educational attainment, males typically earned far more on average compared to females. Despite the decreasing wage gap over the years in the country, it remains an issue to this day. Not only is there a large wage gap between males and females, but there is also a large income gap linked to race as well.

In the academic year 2024, the enrollment rate in universities and junior colleges reached around **** percent for male students and **** percent for female students in Japan. The share of young women attending higher education institutions increased more than ******* in the past 60 years. The overall direct enrollment rate after high school graduation was ** percent.

Graph and download economic data for Ratio of Female to Male Tertiary School Enrollment for China (SEENRTERTFMZSCHN) from 1974 to 2024 about enrolled, ratio, tertiary schooling, females, males, China, and education.

In 2022, about **** million male students were enrolled in degree-granting postsecondary institutions as undergraduates. This is compared to **** million female undergraduate students who were enrolled in that same year. By 2031, these figures are projected to increase to **** million and *** million respectively.

This dataset provides the 4-Year graduation rates in Iowa by cohort (represented by graduating class) for both state-wide and by subgroups starting with the Class of 2013. A cohort in the graduation rate calculation starts with a group of students entering ninth grade for the first time. The cohort is adjusted to add students that transfer in and subtract students that transfer out during a four year time period for calculating a graduation rate. Subgroups in this dataset include: Individualized Education Program, Free or Reduced Lunch, English Language Learners, African American, Hispanic, American Indian, Asian, Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, White, Two or More Races, Migrant, Female, and Male.

Splitgraph serves as an HTTP API that lets you run SQL queries directly on this data to power Web applications. For example:

See the Splitgraph documentation for more information.

Graph and download economic data for Ratio of Female to Male Tertiary School Enrollment for the Republic of Korea (SEENRTERTFMZSKOR) from 1971 to 2022 about enrolled, Korea, ratio, tertiary schooling, females, males, and education.

In 2021, around 1.2 million women were enrolled in postsecondary institutions in Canada. This is compared to about 931,220 men who were enrolled in postsecondary institutions in that same year.

This dataset presents student enrollment figures at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, categorized by college, nationality (Qatari, Non-Qatari), and gender. It includes male, female, and total enrollment counts per group, offering insights into demographic and academic trends across the university’s colleges.

Graph and download economic data for Ratio of Female to Male Tertiary School Enrollment for Developing Countries in Middle East and North Africa (SEENRTERTFMZSMNA) from 1970 to 2023 about North Africa, Middle East, enrolled, ratio, tertiary schooling, females, males, and education.

The percentage of female graduates in Saudi Arabia in 2019 was **** percent. This was slightly higher than the share of male graduates.

Graph and download economic data for Ratio of Female to Male Tertiary School Enrollment for France (SEENRTERTFMZSFRA) from 1979 to 2022 about enrolled, ratio, France, tertiary schooling, females, males, and education.

This statistic shows the total number of students who graduated from postsecondary institutions in Canada in 2021, distinguished by gender and field of study. In 2021, a total of 27,690 women graduated with a degree in humanities in Canada.

Graph and download economic data for Ratio of Female to Male Tertiary School Enrollment for the Philippines (SEENRTERTFMZSPHL) from 1971 to 2024 about enrolled, Philippines, ratio, tertiary schooling, females, males, and education.

In 2021, the gross enrollment rate in tertiary education in Algeria stood at around 54 percent. Female and male enrollment rates were approximately 67 percent and 41 percent, respectively. Since 2004, the percentage of female enrollees in tertiary education has been higher than that of men. Moreover, in the period examined, the gender gap increased year by year, attaining over 25 percent in 2021.

Tertiary education (or higher education) follows secondary education. In Algeria, it includes universities (universités), university centers (centres universitaires), higher national schools (écoles nationales supérieures), higher schools (écoles supérieures), and normal higher schools (écoles normales supérieures).