The supply-demand characteristics of the market for graduate education and the increased need for professional credentialing have led to a lowering of standards over the past 25 years. The master's degree is often a meaningless compilation of courses. The doctorate is too often less than a quality, research degree. Universities have developed many mechanisms for trying to maintain standards within graduate programs. The common denominator of effective quality control mechanisms is that they require the student to “go public” with hislher performances, thus opening those performances to the scrutiny of a wider community of scholars.
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Daryl Siedentop (1987) studied this question.