Postgraduate research degree qualification rates improving

A report published by HEFCE presents projected rates of qualification for a cohort of students studying for postgraduate research degrees [Note 1]. Data on students who began their studies in 2010-11 show that their projected completion rates are higher than equivalent rates for students beginning postgraduate research degrees in recent years.
Similar qualification rates were first published in May 2012 [Note 2], for the cohorts of research degree students beginning their studies at English higher education institutions (HEIs) in 2008-09 and 2009-10. Data for the following year’s cohort are now available [Note 3].
The study looks at projected rates of qualification following research degree study, for students living in the UK and EU who started full-time research degrees at English HEIs in 2010-11. Qualification rates are provided for each HEI, and have been projected over periods of 7 years (at which point there is a reasonable expectation that the majority of students who will ever complete their qualification will have done so) and 25 years (taken as the point when any student who will ever complete has done so).
The latest data show that around 73 per cent of the 11,625 students who started research degrees in English HEIs in 2010-11 are projected to qualify within seven years, and around 80 per cent will qualify over a longer period. These figures have each increased by over 2 percentage points since the 2009-10 cohort (see tables below). These outcomes demonstrate an improvement on those observed for previous cohorts considered under this methodology. Read more...