Admissions Essentials · After college
How many UC graduates go on to graduate school, and what it pays
The share of each UC campus’s graduates who earned a master’s, doctorate, law, MBA or health degree, by campus, major and family background, and what each degree earns in California.
SourceUniversity of California Information Center, bachelor’s graduates of 2001-02 to 2019-20, updated July 16, 2026.
More than a third go on
Of the University of California’s bachelor’s graduates of 2001-02 to 2019-20, 36.8% have since earned a graduate degree, at any college in the country. UCLA sends the most, 42.2%; UC Merced the fewest, 30.0%. Master’s degrees are about equally common everywhere, from 19.0% to 21.8% of a campus’s graduates. The gap between campuses is in law, health and doctoral degrees.
Graduate degrees by campus
Share who earned any graduate degree
UCLA, by kind of degree
Of 146,468 UCLA bachelor’s graduates of 2001-02 to 2019-20. Hover or tap a bar for the share across all nine campuses.
UC matched its graduates to the National Student Clearinghouse, which records degrees from almost every US college. A degree earned abroad is not counted. The latest classes have had less time to finish a graduate degree, so their shares will still rise. Added together, the five shares give the share with any graduate degree; a graduate with two kinds of degree may be in two of them.
What each graduate degree pays
Fifteen years after the bachelor’s, UC graduates with no graduate degree who worked in California had median earnings of $129,600. Those with a medical degree had $327,700, a law degree $188,600 and an MBA $184,300. Two years out the order is different: medical degree holders had a median of $38,800, below the $54,000 of graduates with no graduate degree, because most of them were still in residency.
Median yearly earnings from California wage records, in UC’s inflation-adjusted dollars, for UC bachelor’s graduates of 2001-02 to 2019-20 with California wages that year. Anyone working outside California, self-employed or in the military is not in the wage records, which leaves out many doctors in private practice and anyone who moved away.
By major and family background
Life sciences majors are the most likely to go on to a health degree: 21.7% of them. Pell Grant recipients earned graduate degrees at 34.3%, against 38.4% for everyone else, and first-generation graduates at 33.2%, against 39.1%.
| Group | Any graduate degree | Master’s (other) | Doctorate (PhD) | Law (JD) | MBA | Health professional |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arts & humanities | 34.1% | 23.1% | 2.4% | 5.1% | 2.0% | 1.5% |
| Business | 21.6% | 8.3% | 0.5% | 1.9% | 10.2% | 0.8% |
| Engineering & comp sci | 31.6% | 21.9% | 4.8% | 0.5% | 3.1% | 1.2% |
| Life sciences | 48.1% | 18.6% | 5.1% | 0.8% | 1.9% | 21.7% |
| Other/Interdisc | 32.6% | 18.8% | 1.8% | 3.7% | 3.6% | 4.7% |
| Physical sciences | 42.1% | 23.2% | 10.9% | 0.7% | 3.0% | 4.3% |
| Social sciences | 37.3% | 22.2% | 2.6% | 5.7% | 3.9% | 3.0% |
| Group | Any graduate degree | Master’s (other) | Doctorate (PhD) | Law (JD) | MBA | Health professional |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No Pell Grant | 38.4% | 20.4% | 4.1% | 4.0% | 3.9% | 6.0% |
| Pell Grant recipient | 34.3% | 20.6% | 2.7% | 2.5% | 2.8% | 5.7% |
| First generation | 33.2% | 20.6% | 2.4% | 2.2% | 2.9% | 5.1% |
| Not first generation | 39.1% | 20.6% | 4.2% | 4.1% | 3.6% | 6.6% |
All nine campuses together. On a phone the table shows any graduate degree and master’s; the other columns appear on a wider screen.
Where every number comes from
- UC alumni graduate degree outcomes, University of California Information Center. Covers bachelor’s graduates of 2001-02 to 2019-20, updated July 16, 2026.
We downloaded these files ourselves and computed every figure on this page from them. Where a publisher left a value blank for privacy, we left it blank too.
The odds for everyone, and yours
The numbers tell you the odds for everyone. A counselor tells you yours. Talk to one of ours, free.