In keynote remarks, Dr. Suzanne Ortega, president of the Council of Graduate Schools, stressed the critical importance of developing multiple mentors and advisers rather than relying on one individual.

“Mentoring and advising are way too much for one person to do,” she said. “So, you need a network.”

“Good mentoring is critical to faculty and student diversity,” Ortega added. “Be the kind of mentor you would like to have had.”career path begins or takes you.

Graduate students in the humanities face many challenges. The academic job market keeps getting tighter, student debt loads bigger. A doctorate these days isn’t worth it, critics have argued. But the results of a new survey, released on Thursday by the Council of Graduate Schools, push back a bit against that gloomy narrative.

A large majority of humanities Ph.D.s believe that their graduate programs prepared them well for their eventual jobs, academic or not, especially over time. And all those jobs appear to require many of the same kinds of skills, according to a new report from the Council of Graduate Schools.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/10/03/report-says-international-graduate-enrollments-were-down-second-straight-year-last

First-time international graduate enrollments in U.S. institutions fell 3.7 percent from fall 2016 to fall 2017, according to a new report from the Council of Graduate Schools. While the council isn’t certain what caused the drop, it’s hard for it -- or anyone else -- not to think of the Trump administration’s stance on immigration.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/International-Students-/244706?cid=wcontentlist_hp_latest

Graduate enrollment by international students in the United States has decreased for the second time since 2003, according to an annual report by the Council of Graduate Schools.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/08/30/mla-study-english-and-other-modern-language-phds-1996-2010-mostly-working-academe

Suzanne Ortega, president of the Council of Graduate Schools, said in an emailed statement that MLA's and AHA's recent studies "are filling big gaps in our understanding of the careers of humanities Ph.D.s." 

Their information is "critical for current and future Ph.D.s trying to understand the career options available to them, and to humanities Ph.D. programs working to improve the preparation of their students," Ortega said, noting that CGS will be ready to release data from its own Andrew W. Mellon Foundation- and National Science Foundation-funded study of career pathways in the fall. Preliminarily, she said of the forthcoming data, "I think we can safely say that the first wave of findings point to greater diversity of career options than many humanities Ph.D. students would imagine."

https://eos.org/opinions/preparing-graduate-students-for-stem-careers-outside-academia

Current graduate programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) prepare students for a career that most of them will never find themselves in. These graduate programs have traditionally been apprenticeships that prepare students to become researchers at academic institutions [Hancock and Walsh, 2016]. However, more than 50% of all doctoral degree holders do not work in academia or even do research as their primary job (Figure 1).

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/07/18/nonprofit-national-university-system-makes-moves-acquire-profit-institution

There is a growing demand for graduate degree holders in the work force, and officials at National University System are looking to meet it.

https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/letters/universities-are-up-to-challenge-of-gathering-data-about-ph-d-s/

At the same time, it is important to note that in recent years, U.S. universities have demonstrated that they are up to the challenge of gathering and reporting data about their Ph.D.s. As members of the Ph.D. Career Pathways project, we are part of a network of 64 universities working with the Council of Graduate Schools to collect data on the career pathways of STEM and humanities Ph.D.s with support from the National Science Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/317857 

Our nation's global lead in technology and economic success is thanks, in part, to bold immigrant innovators who sought to seize the opportunities our nation affords. Preventing them from staying here does nothing to strengthen the U.S. job market. If anything, it weakens it.

Moreover, it means handing over top talent to international competitors. A 2015 survey conducted by the Council of Graduate Schools found that temporary residents made up over 63 percent of first-time graduate students in math and computer science programs at U.S. universities. Gutting programs such as IER forces students to leave right after they graduate, at which point other countries will happily accept them. The United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and France all are bringing in this kind of foreign-born tech talent that we're willing to forfeit, even at a time when the American job market is booming.