This year marks the 100th anniversary of the formation of the Graduate School at Marquette. To commemorate this historic moment, the Graduate School will host a series of events throughout the academic year honoring the accomplishments of graduate student alumni, deepening the understanding of graduate education’s mission and purpose in the 21st century, and celebrating the contributions provided by faculty, students and staff on behalf of the Graduate School.
As one of, if not the first Graduate School established at a Jesuit university, Marquette’s Graduate School opened its doors in fall of 1922. Learn more about the history of the Graduate School, by the numbers:
- The Graduate School has awarded nearly 29,000 advanced degrees, including 25,690 master’s degrees and 3,084 doctoral degrees, since its formation.
- The first class of the Graduate School consisted of 10 students who earned master’s degrees in 1923. Just 154 total – 90 women and 64 men – received a master’s or doctorate degree from Marquette within the first ten years of the Graduate School. Last spring, 837 students received their master’s degrees and 76 received Ph.D. degrees at Marquette’s graduate Commencement ceremony at Summerfest’s American Family Insurance Amphitheater.
- The Graduate School’s first class in the triple digits came in 1941, when 171 degrees were bestowed.
- Today, Marquette offers over 70 master’s and doctoral programs and 21 graduate certificate programs through the Graduate School.
- Nearly 3,700 graduate and professional students are currently enrolled at Marquette. The current graduate population is the most diverse in the university’s history: students of color represent 23% and women represent 61% of the graduate population.
- Since 2016, graduate school enrollment has increased 30% and professional school enrollment has increased 10%.
- This fall, more than 1,100 students arrived on campus to pursue graduate and professional degrees in the Graduate School, Graduate School of Management, College of Health Sciences, School of Dentistry and Marquette University Law School. The first-year class in the Graduate School and Graduate School of Management consists of 676 students from 37 states and 21 countries.