Latest College Completion Rate Holds Steady At 62.3%

The national college six-year completion rate stands at 62.3%, according to a new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC). The report’s time period covers students who entered college for the first time in 2016 and completed a degree by June 2022. The rate is basically the same as the 62.2% completion rate reported for the cohort of students beginning college in 2015.

NSCRC completion rates account for all students who begin postsecondary education for the first time each year, enrolling full-time or part-time at two-year or four-year institutions and completing a degree at any U.S. degree-granting institution. The results include those who complete after transferring in addition to those who earn their degree at their starting institution.

Thus, the NSCRC data portrays students’ diverse pathways to college completion that increasingly includes moving between institutions and across state lines, re-entering colleges after stopping out, and changing between full-time and part-time enrollment.

By The Numbers

Completion rates continue to vary considerably by sector. Students starting at private, nonprofit four-year institutions completed at a 77.8% clip, while 68% of those beginning at public four-years completed degrees within six years. Those rates stood in marked contrast to the completion rates of students beginning at private, for-profit schools (47.6%) and at public two-year colleges (43.1%).

Six-year completion rates increased in more than half the states, but the improvements were small, with only five states (Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Rhode Island and Utah) increasing by one percentage point or more. In the previous year, two-thirds of the states saw gains of at least one percentage point. Four states (Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, and North Dakota) saw their completion rates decrease by one percentage point or more from the prior year.

Asian students had the highest six-year completion rate (74.9%), followed by whites (68.4%), Latinx (50.3%), Native Americans (49.5%), and Black students (43.9%).

Compared to the previous year, completion rates decreased by about one percentage point for White, Black, and Latinx students, while they increased for Asian and Native American students (+1.2 percentage points and +3.0 percentage points respectively).

The gender gap in completion rates continued to widen, with men completing at a rate of 58.5% and women at 65.6%. That 7.1 percentage point difference is the largest since 2008.

Students entering college at 20 years of age or younger completed their degrees at a rate of 64%, substantially higher than the rates for students 21-24 years of age (54.4%) and those 24 and older (51.1%).

Eight Year Completion Rates

NSCRC also reported national eight-year completion rates, which nationally stood at 65.2%. The eight-year completion rate did not change between the fall 2013 and fall 2014 cohorts. Compared to other students, proportionally more Latinx and Asian students completed during their seventh and eighth years.

Implications

While the 62.3% six-year completion rate barely budged from the prior year’s rate, it is still the highest in more than a decade. In 2009, the corresponding national rate was only 52.9%.

Among noncompleters, 8.9% were still enrolled in postsecondary education six years after starting, while 28.8% were no longer enrolled anywhere. That combined number represents a major challenge to the nation’s colleges and universities.

“Today, out of all students who started college six years ago, 37.7 percent have yet to complete any degree or credential,” said Doug Shapiro, executive director of the NSCRC. “And with only 8.9 percent still working on it, the remaining 28.8 percent amounts to too many who are short of their dreams and left out of the educated workforce of the future.”

About the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center

The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center is the research arm of the National Student Clearinghouse. It collaborates with higher education institutions, states, school districts, high schools, and educational organizations as part of a national effort to better inform education leaders and policymakers. Through accurate longitudinal data reporting, the Research Center enables better educational policy decisions leading to improved student outcomes.

The Research Center currently collects data from more than 3,600 postsecondary institutions, which represent 97% of the nation’s postsecondary enrollments in degree-granting institutions, as of fall 2019.