Comparative data on California graduate school enrollments and degrees for 1977-78 and 1981-82 are presented, and issues in graduate education that have state policy implications are discussed. Although some data for California private institutions are provided, attention is focused on academic master's and doctor's degrees, rather than first professional degrees, at California State University and University of California. The growth of the doctoral and master's degrees nationally is also briefly considered, along with graduate school enrollments/degrees by study field for ethnic minorities, foreign students, and women. Findings include the following: foreign language programs experienced consistent and broad-scale enrollment losses; computer science programs experienced the most consistent increases; graduate programs in English on six California State University campuses lost more than one-third of their enrollments since 1978; among the natural science disciplines, only programs in biology showed appreciable losses; degrees in education represented one-third of all graduate degrees conferred by California State University; and business administration enrollments at the University of California increased 95 percent in the past 5 years. (SW)