Home About News Rackham by the Numbers: A 20 Year Snapshot Rackham by the Numbers: A 20 Year Snapshot Explore how much the graduate student population at U-M has changed over the last 20 years with data from the class of 2005 and the class of 2025. July 9, 2025 | Rackham Graduate School Categories: News The 2025 Rackham Graduate Exercises were held at Crisler Center instead of Hill Auditorium, creating new traditions for Rackham graduates. This change in venue was brought about by new capacity needs—the class of 2025 simply had too many master’s and doctoral program graduates to fit in Hill Auditorium with all of their guests. To give an idea of how much our student population has changed even recently, we explored some of the key differences between the Rackham class of 2005 and the Rackham class of 2025. Between 2005 and 2025, the number of degrees granted at Rackham has grown by 1,053 to 3,625 graduates across 138 programs. This is approximately a 41 percent increase, with 824 of those degrees being master’s degrees alone. Rackham is home to more Ph.D. students than master’s students at any given time; the last available enrollment numbers from the 2024-2025 academic year indicate 5,906 Ph.D. students to 3,834 master’s students. However, doctoral programs take much longer to complete—and students complete at a lower rate than their master’s counterparts—resulting in fewer doctoral degrees granted each year than master’s degrees. For both the class of 2005 and 2025, nearly three-fourths of Rackham graduates celebrated the completion of their master’s program. Since 2025, Rackham has experienced significant growth in degrees granted to international students, with 1,472 international graduates in 2025 coming from 75 countries, a nearly 100 percent increase from 2005. International students who graduate with a master’s degree have grown from 546 international master’s degree graduates in 2005 to 1,189 in 2025. Rackham graduates from the United States and territories accounted for 2,041 of the degrees granted in 2025, nearly an 18 percent increase from 2005. As bittersweet as it was to embrace a new tradition of Rackham Graduate Exercises held at Crisler Center, immense growth in the graduate student population at U-M is something we can all be proud of. The world has changed in so many ways over the last 20 years—and Rackham Graduate School has continuously adapted to ensure that our students are prepared for it.
Smart Homes vs. Safe Homes July 17, 2025 | Rackham Graduate School Rackham Ph.D. student Kaiwen Sun studies ways that smart tech impacts family life, with an eye toward greater safety. How Rackham Helps Student Spotlights
Announcing the 2025 Rackham Public Scholarship Grants July 28, 2025 | Rackham Graduate School The Rackham Program in Public Scholarship supports publicly engaged scholarship through mutually beneficial projects created between Rackham students and community partners. News
