In a context characterized by a significant turn in the role and importance of graduate courses within the Mexican higher education system, whose most representative features are: a fourfold increase in enrollment in just two decades and the increase of the government regulation from a set of rules and values associated to external evaluation. This paper is an initial review of the characteristics of the processes because the increase in the number of academic degrees achieved has not been accompanied by a remarkable growth of the institutional capacities of research and innovation or by the perceptible improvement of teaching. In contrast, the most visible achievement seems to focus on the fulfillment of standard indicators developed by the public policy as a mechanism for differentiating budget. Here, the impact of the ways to generate programs and their development and consolidation processes is especially explored, ranging from its formulation in environments marked by collegiality and maturity groups, networks and lines of research to its emergence as a certification mechanism and the empowerment of teachers through their institutions of affiliation.