What Percentage of Americans Have Graduate Degrees?

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2012, 10.9 percent of people in the United States over age 25 had graduate degrees. A decade before, only 8.7 percent of this population had master’s degrees or higher.

The 2012 census also reported data on undergraduate degrees. Over 30 percent of the people surveyed had at least a bachelor’s degree. That is an increase of more than 4 percentage points in 10 years. The previous census reported that men had an edge over women in undergraduate and graduate degrees; however, by 2012, the advantage had shrunk to less than one percent at both levels.