There’s two components to this question. First, in comparison to other periods, did the number of doctorates dramatically rise during the Vietnam War era? Second, if so, what caused it?

Did PhDs rise?

Looking at the statistics, there is a clear rise in PhDs granted. The number of awarded doctorates in all fields was just 8,611 in 1957. (To put that in perspective, in 2014 there were 1,183 new PhDs in history departments across the US and a total of 52,760 PhDs in all fields.)

By the 1970s that figure had skyrocketted. In 1973 a total of 33,755 PhDs were awarded in the US. So, over the preceding decade and a half, the number of graduates increased by about 9 percent a year on average.

This also reflected the growth of PhD granting institutions. Prior to the 1920s America had less than fifty universities and colleges training PhD candidates. There were roughly 120 PhD granting institutions in 1950, a number that rose to ~ 290 by 1973. Only in the 1960s did universities in certain states (Maine, Idaho, Nevada, Puerto Rico) grant their first PhD.

The dramatic increase in PhDs was largely a response to the rise of higher education and the need for university level teachers, as well as the increase of federal funding brought on by the Cold War. The launch of the Sputnik satellite by the USSR in 1957 led President Eisenhower to declare that the USSR was surpassing the United States as a scientific and technological leader. In response the federal government increased its funding for fellowships, grants, and awards, causing higher education’s investments to doubled in this time period. In 1959 higher education accounted for 1.4 percent of Gross National Product. By 1970 it was up to 2.7 percent.

What were the causes?

Men enrolled in college/university level study could obtain draft deferments under The Selective Service Act of 1967. Once they graduated, or if they failed out, they became draft eligible again. However, graduate students also retained an exemption. Though still technically eligible for enlistment until the age of 35, most men were pulled from the 19-25 age group. You see where this is going … if you can stay in graduate school until past your 25th birthday, you were unlikely to be drafted. Or, if you were employed in a critical industry you could continue to receive deferments after graduation.

But soon thereafter President Lyndon Johnson issued Executive Order 11360. After 1968 graduate level educational deferments were only available to those “satisfactorily pursuing a course of graduate study in medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, osteopathy or optometry.” This eliminated the draft deferment for most graduate students. Thus, at the height of enlistment there was only limited deferment protection from enlistment for PhD students. By 1971, the ‘Vietnamization’ of the war was underway, what the Nixon administration called the withdraw of US ground troops in favor of South Vietnamese armed forces fighting. Thereafter, the risk of being drafted for Vietnam ended.

The number of undergraduate enrollments did increase as a result of the military draft. Between 1962 and 1970, the number of BAs awarded to undergraduates doubled in size. To really attribute causation, one study looked at the relative growth in enrollments between men and women during this period, since men were subject to the draft and not women. They argued that an abnormal rise of 4-6 percent in male undergraduate enrollments compared to women indicates that draft deferments resulted in a significant rise in male undergraduate enrollment (see Card & Lemieux citation below). In addition, they note, after the war ended undergraduate enrollments declined.

The share of BA graduates going on to receive a PhD was at 4 percent for those matriculating from undergraduate in 1954. It peaked in 1962 with 5.9 percent of university graduates going on to earn their doctorate. It went down precipitously thereafter, declining from 1965 onward. It was just 1.7 percent in 1974. The peak of PhDs attained per percent of BA students occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s — before the Vietnam War, well at least before Americans started fighting in it — an era when draft enlistment was at its lowest since the Korean War, with emphasis on nuclear deterrence, air power, and not a large land army. There may well have been an impact on Master’s enrollment, but not on PhDs.

Keep in mind this is not the total number of PhDs awarded. That figure rose throughout the late 1960s before reversing and declining after 1973. This is just the proclivity, or rate, at which BA graduates successfully attained a PhD. The rise in the number of PhDs earned is attributable mainly to the dramatic rise in the size of BA cohorts (i.e. entering classes) from the late 1940s onward. But the percentage of male students graduating with a BA between 1965-1971, the war years, and going on to earn a PhD decreased. But … the number of PhDs being awarded during those years did rise. Why? It takes a long time to get a PhD! Those people had enrolled five to seven years earlier. So while it may seem convincing that a record number of PhDs were awarded in 1968, those people actually enrolled back in 1960-63. In other words, they made their decision in the context of the ‘golden era’ of academic job growth and the Cold War expansion of education.

However, the end of graduate deferments did correlate to the decline in students entering PhD programs. Just 3.7 percent of BA graduates in 1968 went on to obtain a PhD (recall it was 5.9 percent in 1962). This year saw the sharpest drop, as it was the year that Executive Order 11360 went into effect, ending the deferments. The propensity of women obtaining PhDs also fell by 1968, but at half the rate of men. This seems attributable to the uncertainty of the draft for male graduates. Why bother starting a 6 year program if you very well may have to leave it immediately for military service?

In some way this was a good thing. The golden era of academic expansion was ending and the number of PhDs was outstripping the number of new jobs. The war, in effect, helped orient the academic market to a better balance, in tune with more normal growth. Had the pre 1965 PhD enrollments continued apace, there would have been over 2,000 more PhDs for just those BA graduates between 1966-68.

In sum:

Did the draft cause undergraduate enrollments to increase? Yes.

Did the draft cause the number of MAs awarded to increase? It seems so.

Did the draft cause the number of PhDs awarded to increase? No.

Did the draft cause the number of PhDs awarded to decrease? Yes.

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William G. Bowen, In Pursuit of the PhD (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).

David Card and Thomas Lemieux, The American Economic Review, Vol. 91, No. 2 (May, 2001), 97-102.

Lori Thurgood, Mary J. Golladay, and Susan T. Hill, "U.S. Doctorates in the 20th Century” National Science Foundation (June 2006), http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf06319/pdf/nsf06319.pdf