Center for Studies in Higher Education

This is a universal tracking of all 6,377 Berkeley Ph.D.s granted between 1980 and 1989) for which 4,853 (76%) first positions were identified. The study is likely the first comprehensive tracking of ALL Ph.D. recipients from any US University. As a path-breaking work it altered the attitude of many UCB departments and schools toward keeping track of their own doctorates. In the period between December 1980 to June 1989 UC Berkeley granted 6,377 Ph.D.s. and UC Berkeley was the largest doctoral granting university in the US at the time. Women were 29% of all recipients, whites 65%, Asians 5.6%, Blacks 2%, Chicanos 0.8%, Latinos 1.1%, Native Americans 0.3%, foreign students 21.5%. After four years of data collection 4,853 or 76% of the total were found with information on at least the first position. It could not have been achieved without the moral and financial support of both the then Dean of the Graduate Division, Joseph Cerny, as well as that of the then Vice President of Academic Affairs, Eugene Cota-Robles along with many others.Funding: Berkeley Graduate Division, UCOP Academic Affairs, UCB Career Planning and Placement Center.