This study proposes the use of the method known as Data Envelopment Analysis as a tool for quantitative support to the assessment of postgraduate programs. We provided an application to the production engineering programs registered at the Coordinating Body for Perfecting Graduate Studies in Higher Education (Capes), using quantitative data from that institution. The results reveal some remarkable characteristics of the method: the input-output feature, prevalent in production functions; the flexibility of weights assigned to the criteria, which is important when dealing with heterogeneity among the units under assessment; and the identification of benchmarks.