Trends since 1989 in the minority graduate pipeline in psychology are examined, with special focus on trends in recent years. Encouraging trends generally outweigh troubling ones at lower levels of the pipeline. However, in recent years disquieting trends dominate at the higher pipeline levels. Promising trends include a rise in the percentage (to nearly 25%) of minority psychology students receiving the bachelor's degree and a rise to more than 20% receiving the master's degree. Troubling trends include the stalling of growth in minority PhD degree receipt since 1999 and the lack of growth in the percentage of African American and Hispanic/Latino(a) students entering PhD departments. Given the mixed findings, one of the highest priorities for psychology must be continued and persistent efforts to develop practices and policies that enhance recruitment, high levels of achievement, and degree receipt for students of color.

This article traces the evolution of graduate study in psychology in the United States and Canada during the past 3 decades. The authors summarize the 2003-2004 characteristics of graduate programs and departments in psychology and compare these data to those obtained in 1970-1971, 1979-1980, and 1992-1993. The most recent data were obtained from the 2005 edition of Graduate Study in Psychology and were based on 495 institutions, 601 departments, and 1,970 graduate programs. Information is presented for both entire departments (e.g., faculty characteristics, student profiles, admission criteria, Graduate Record Examination and grade point averages, tuition costs, financial assistance) and individual graduate programs (e.g., areas of study, number of applicants, acceptance rates, enrollment statistics, retention rates). Particular attention is devoted to the emergence of PsyD programs in professional psychology, the ascendancy of neuroscience programs in academic psychology, and the steady rise in acceptance rates across programs over the past 33 years.

Since 1975, the American Psychological Association has conducted the Doctorate Employment Survey to assess the employment status of recent doctorate recipients in psychology. This article summarizes the results of the 1981 and 1982 surveys and describes the employment status, employment settings and positions (including secondary employment), sources of financial support for graduate training, geographic location after graduation, and trends in the employment of 1975-1982 doctorate recipients. The employment market for doctorate recipients has stabilized. Many of the results of these surveys show little or no change from the results of the 1979 and 1980 surveys. Unemployment has been and continues to be low; most respondents continue to find jobs that are psychology related and that are commensurate with their training and experience; and the percentage of respondents who find academic employment has stopped declining.

Given the substantial number of health service providers in psychology, W. N. Robiner and D. P. Crew (2000) recommend that the entering class size of professional psychology doctoral programs be reduced, especially for those aimed at training practitioners. To explore the feasibility of their recommendation, data were used from recent surveys of new doctorate recipients in the health service provider specialties.Changes in responses over time were examined with regard to their employment status, views of the job market, and satisfaction with their current position. Comparisons also were made between graduates in the health service provider versus other subfields, between those who earned their degrees from university versus professional schools, and between those in practitioner versus other types of positions.The results suggest that Robiner and Crew's recommendation may not be easily implemented. A more promising approach may be to focus on how the curricula and training practices in doctoral programs should be changed to better match the marketplace for new graduates.In recent years, the possible threat of an excess of doctoral-level psychologists has attracted increasing attention. For example, the 1994 National Conference on Health Care Reform and Psychological Practice in Rehabilitation and Health Care settings, sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA), urged that serious examination be paid to understanding the implications of the rapid growth in the number of psychologists (Glueckauf, Frank, Bond, McGrew, & O'Keeffe, 1996). Three years later, the reported difficulties in securing predoctoral internships, complaints about the tightening job market, and erosion in psychologists' earnings prompted the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC) and the APA to convene a conference aimed specifically at discussing "the supply and demand imbalances" in professional psychology (Pederson et al., 1997).By interpreting trends in the growth in clinical training programs, new psychology doctorates, and licensed psychologists within the context of certain assumptions about providerpopulation ratios, Robiner and Crew (2000) provide some empirical basis for this concern.

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