Identity formation is a pivotal milestone in the age range of emerging adulthood ("EA"; ages 18-29; Arnett, 2000; 2014). Most of the literature in the area emphasizes the role of identity within college student samples, but there is a lack of understanding of identity distress among graduate students. Graduate school is a prolonged period of heightened rates of anxiety, depression, frustration, and "pressure to perform" in which students recontextualize themselves to adapt their identities in line with their professional goals (Adler & Adler, 2005; Charles, 2022). This begs the question if graduate students feel "left behind" with reference to societal expectations of their age range. Do they feel like "adults" in comparison to those who did not go to graduate school? There has yet to be a direct comparison between graduate students and emerging adults of the same age range who did not choose to pursue graduate school. Hence, the goal of this project was to compare identity distress and the dimensions of emerging adulthood between graduate students and workforce members, controlling for age. Additionally, I regressed the same variables on overall well-being across groups and examine their predictive qualities. Three hypotheses were examined: (1) Graduate students will exhibit greater identity distress in comparison to EA's who did not pursue postgraduate education, and graduate students will more closely align to the dimensions of emerging adulthood because they have yet to feel like an "adult" in their student role. (2) Identity distress will uniquely contribute toward variance in well-being across both groups in a negative association. Additionally, mentorship will act as a moderating protective factor against identity distress. (3) Income will moderate the relationship between identity distress and well-being across groups where the association will be stronger at lower levels of income and buffered at higher levels. A sample of 149 graduate students (M[subscript age]= 24.89, 65.9% female, 60% single) and 109 community members (M[subscript age]= 25.32, 61.5% female, 51.6% single) completed an online survey via Qualtrics. In contrast to predictions, there were no significant differences in the dimensions of emerging adulthood nor subscales of identity distress between schooling groups. However, consistent with assumptions, graduate students exhibited greater levels of stress and mentor support as compared to those not enrolled. In parsing identity distress into factors in an exploratory analysis, professional identity distress (in terms of career choice and long-term goals) significantly predicted well-being in a negative association. Lastly, income was not a significant moderating variable in the relationship between professional identity distress and well-being. Additional exploratory analyses are discussed along with possible explanations for results. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]