ANALYSIS: Graduation Rates Fall at One-Third of 4-Year Colleges
SORTABLE TABLES: Graduation Rates Over Time, by Type of Institution:
Public Research | Private Research | Public Master's | Private Master's | Private Baccalaureate Arts & Sciences
We compare here the graduation rates at four-year colleges for the six years ending in 2008 with the rates for the six years ending in 2003. Because rates can spike up or down in a particular year, we also show a separate comparison that tends to reduce the effect of those outliers on differences in colleges' rates over time. To make this comparison, we averaged each college's rates in 2003 and 2008 with rates in the immediately preceeding years, then compared the averages. To further illustrate changes over time at each college, we show in boldface type any rate that increased over the one in the immediately preceeding year. Figures are rounded. About These Data
** Change in averaged graduation rates: the difference, in percentage points, of the average of the rates for 2001 and 2002 compared with the average of the rates for 2007 and 2008.
| Institution | Change in percentage points, 2003-8 | Change in averaged graduation rates** | Change in admissions selectivity | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clark Atlanta U | 14 | 13 | none | 31% | 31% | 34% | n/a | 40% | 44% | 45% |
| Trevecca Nazarene U | 13 | 15 | more | 30% | 37% | 39% | 40% | 48% | 48% | 50% |
| Stevens Inst of Tech | 13 | 12 | more | 65% | 66% | 75% | 72% | 73% | 76% | 79% |
| Yeshiva U | 10 | 3 | less | 88% | 72% | 55% | 81% | 66% | 84% | 83% |
| Adelphi U | 10 | 12 | more | 48% | 53% | 53% | 54% | 61% | 63% | 64% |
| Northeastern U | 10 | 10 | more | 56% | 60% | 60% | 61% | 65% | 66% | 70% |
| U of La Verne | 10 | 11 | none | 47% | 50% | 47% | 52% | 51% | 59% | 60% |
| U of Miami | 9 | 10 | none | 65% | 67% | 71% | 71% | 73% | 76% | 77% |
| U of Hartford | 8 | 4 | none | 55% | 52% | 53% | 56% | 51% | 54% | 60% |
| U of Tulsa | 8 | 4 | more | 63% | 55% | 60% | 61% | 61% | 63% | 63% |
| U of Southern California | 7 | 8 | more | 76% | 81% | 82% | 83% | 84% | 85% | 88% |
| Vanderbilt U | 6 | 6 | more | 84% | 83% | 86% | 88% | 89% | 91% | 89% |
| Biola U | 6 | 7 | more | 63% | 64% | 62% | 69% | 67% | 71% | 70% |
| Carnegie Mellon U | 6 | 5 | none | 82% | 81% | 85% | 86% | 86% | 87% | 87% |
| Brigham Young U | 6 | 6 | none | 71% | 74% | 70% | 70% | 78% | 78% | 79% |
| Clarkson U | 6 | 5 | none | 66% | 64% | 64% | 71% | 70% | 70% | 70% |
| George Washington U | 6 | 5 | none | 73% | 75% | 79% | 78% | 79% | 78% | 81% |
| New York U | 6 | 6 | more | 78% | 79% | 80% | 83% | 84% | 84% | 84% |
| Azusa Pacific U | 6 | 7 | more | 55% | 57% | 62% | 86% | 56% | 65% | 63% |
| U of Rochester | 6 | 3 | none | 81% | 78% | 81% | 80% | 80% | 81% | 84% |
| Clark U | 5 | 5 | more | 71% | 68% | 69% | 70% | 72% | 76% | 73% |
| Drexel U | 5 | 6 | none | 57% | 57% | 57% | 60% | 60% | 64% | 62% |
| Brandeis U | 5 | 4 | more | 85% | 84% | 89% | 88% | 88% | 89% | 89% |
| U of Chicago | 5 | 3 | none | 89% | 87% | 87% | 91% | 89% | 90% | 92% |
| Boston U | 5 | 6 | more | 75% | 75% | 75% | 77% | 81% | 82% | 80% |
| Florida Inst of Tech | 5 | 4 | none | 53% | 54% | 54% | 52% | 57% | 56% | 59% |
| Washington U in St. Louis | 4 | 4 | more | 89% | 89% | 92% | 91% | 91% | 92% | 94% |
| American U | 4 | 6 | none | 66% | 71% | 73% | 71% | 71% | 73% | 76% |
| Andrews U | 4 | 5 | none | 48% | 53% | 38% | 51% | 57% | 54% | 57% |
| Texas Christian U | 4 | 5 | less | 64% | 65% | 67% | 69% | 68% | 69% | 69% |
| Oral Roberts U | 4 | 2 | less | 52% | 50% | 54% | 54% | 55% | 52% | 54% |
| Samford U | 4 | 2 | none | 67% | 73% | 68% | 70% | 71% | 67% | 77% |
| U of Denver | 4 | 5 | none | 69% | 71% | 69% | 70% | 72% | 74% | 74% |
| Trinity International U | 4 | 4 | none | 43% | 48% | 52% | 37% | 61% | 47% | 52% |
| U of San Diego | 4 | 5 | more | 67% | 72% | 73% | 73% | 75% | 74% | 75% |
| Saint Louis U | 3 | 3 | none | 72% | 71% | 74% | 75% | 75% | 74% | 74% |
| Pacific U | 3 | 6 | less | 53% | 64% | 65% | 64% | 59% | 63% | 67% |
| U of Pennsylvania | 3 | 3 | none | 92% | 92% | 94% | 94% | 94% | 95% | 95% |
| Worcester Polytechnic Inst | 3 | 2 | none | 74% | 77% | 79% | 74% | 75% | 76% | 79% |
| Southern Methodist U | 3 | 2 | more | 70% | 72% | 71% | 71% | 74% | 71% | 74% |
| Rice U | 3 | 1 | none | 92% | 90% | 91% | 90% | 93% | 90% | 93% |
| Case Western Reserve U | 3 | 4 | more | 76% | 78% | 81% | 77% | 78% | 81% | 80% |
| Baylor U | 2 | 1 | none | 72% | 70% | 72% | 72% | 74% | 72% | 73% |
| New School | 2 | 7 | n/a | 50% | 59% | 61% | 57% | 60% | 62% | 61% |
| Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst | 2 | 3 | none | 78% | 81% | 81% | 81% | 82% | 82% | 83% |
| Catholic U of America | 2 | 6 | none | 65% | 69% | 73% | 70% | 68% | 75% | 71% |
| Pepperdine U | 2 | 3 | none | 75% | 80% | 77% | 80% | 79% | 79% | 81% |
| Tufts U | 2 | 1 | none | 88% | 90% | 91% | 90% | 92% | 89% | 92% |
| Duke U | 1 | 1 | none | 93% | 94% | 94% | 93% | 94% | 94% | 95% |
| Illinois Inst of Tech | 1 | 6 | none | 56% | 62% | 61% | 69% | 68% | 67% | 64% |
| Johns Hopkins U | 1 | 2 | none | 88% | 88% | 88% | 88% | 92% | 90% | 89% |
| Massachusetts Inst of Tech | 1 | 2 | none | 91% | 92% | 92% | 94% | 93% | 93% | 94% |
| Yale U | 1 | 1 | none | 95% | 96% | 96% | 96% | 96% | 96% | 97% |
| Boston C | 1 | 3 | none | 87% | 89% | 89% | 91% | 91% | 91% | 91% |
| U of Notre Dame | 1 | 1 | none | 95% | 95% | 96% | 95% | 96% | 95% | 96% |
| Seton Hall U | 1 | 1 | less | 56% | 59% | 57% | 56% | 58% | 57% | 61% |
| Cornell U | 1 | 2 | none | 88% | 92% | 92% | 93% | 92% | 92% | 93% |
| Long Island U-C.W. Post Campus | 1 | 3 | none | 37% | 40% | 36% | 43% | 47% | 42% | 41% |
| Wake Forest U | 1 | 2 | none | 87% | 87% | 86% | 88% | 88% | 89% | 88% |
| U of San Francisco | 1 | -1 | none | 67% | 66% | 66% | 67% | 65% | 65% | 67% |
| Tulane U | 1 | 2 | none | 73% | 74% | 73% | 73% | 71% | 76% | 74% |
| California Inst of Tech | 0 | 2 | none | 86% | 88% | 89% | 90% | 89% | 89% | 88% |
| Columbia U | 0 | 1 | none | 92% | 92% | 93% | 92% | 93% | 93% | 93% |
| Northwestern U | 0 | 0 | none | 93% | 93% | 92% | 93% | 93% | 93% | 94% |
| Stanford U | 0 | 2 | none | 93% | 94% | 95% | 94% | 95% | 95% | 94% |
| Georgetown U | 0 | 0 | none | 94% | 93% | 93% | 93% | 94% | 93% | 93% |
| Marquette U | 0 | 0 | less | 76% | 76% | 77% | 80% | 78% | 75% | 76% |
| Dartmouth C | 0 | -1 | none | 95% | 95% | 95% | 93% | 94% | 93% | 95% |
| U of the Pacific | 0 | -1 | more | 69% | 68% | 70% | 65% | 68% | 67% | 68% |
| DePaul U | 0 | 0 | none | 63% | 64% | 61% | 63% | 64% | 62% | 64% |
| Harvard U | 0 | -1 | none | 98% | 98% | 98% | 98% | 98% | 97% | 98% |
| Howard U | 0 | 6 | none | 58% | 65% | 60% | 67% | 67% | 69% | 65% |
| Fordham U | 0 | 3 | none | 73% | 79% | 77% | 78% | 78% | 80% | 78% |
| Duquesne U | 0 | 1 | less | 70% | 72% | 69% | 68% | 70% | 72% | 72% |
| Princeton U | 0 | -1 | none | 97% | 97% | 97% | 97% | 96% | 95% | 96% |
| U of Bridgeport | -1 | 2 | none | 36% | 41% | 51% | 34% | 43% | 42% | 41% |
| Lehigh U | -1 | 0 | more | 83% | 86% | 84% | 85% | 86% | 83% | 85% |
| Pace U New York Campus | -1 | 0 | none | 52% | 56% | 59% | 56% | 56% | 53% | 55% |
| U of Dayton | -1 | 0 | more | 76% | 76% | 74% | 79% | 77% | 76% | 75% |
| Syracuse U | -1 | 2 | none | 77% | 81% | 79% | 79% | 82% | 82% | 80% |
| Brown U | -1 | -1 | none | 95% | 96% | 96% | 95% | 94% | 95% | 94% |
| Loyola U Chicago | -1 | -3 | none | 70% | 68% | 65% | 67% | 70% | 65% | 66% |
| Polytechnic Inst of New York U | -2 | -2 | more | 50% | 55% | 43% | 45% | 50% | 47% | 53% |
| Hofstra U | -2 | -1 | none | 55% | 56% | 51% | 55% | 56% | 53% | 54% |
| Saint Mary's U of Minnesota | -3 | -6 | none | 62% | 60% | 58% | 65% | 61% | 53% | 57% |
| Widener U | -3 | -6 | none | 60% | 59% | 60% | 57% | 60% | 52% | 56% |
| St. John's U | -4 | -6 | none | 69% | 64% | 66% | 64% | 59% | 61% | 61% |
| Emory U | -4 | -2 | more | 88% | 91% | 86% | 91% | 87% | 88% | 87% |
| U of Saint Thomas | -4 | -1 | more | 70% | 76% | 71% | 74% | 74% | 72% | 72% |
| George Fox U | -4 | 0 | more | 59% | 66% | 61% | 59% | 66% | 62% | 62% |
| Nova Southeastern U | -6 | 0 | none | 40% | 47% | 42% | 39% | 42% | 46% | 41% |
| Wilmington U | -8 | -13 | none | 53% | 47% | 49% | 38% | 45% | 35% | 39% |
| Spalding U | -13 | -14 | more | 40% | 46% | 49% | 49% | 29% | 24% | 33% |
| Barry U | -16 | -10 | less | 44% | 57% | 39% | 50% | 34% | 39% | 41% |
| Immaculata U | -18 | 0 | less | 50% | 65% | 53% | 60% | 56% | 67% | 47% |
| Alliant International U-San Diego | -19 | -16 | n/a | 34% | 30% | 88% | 34% | 45% | 20% | 11% |
| Golden Gate U * | -27 | -12 | less | 47% | 37% | 6% | n/a | 50% | 50% | 10% |
* Institution enrolled relatively few students (50 or fewer in 2002) who met the federal government's criteria (like full-time attendance) to be counted in the graduation rate for the six-year period ending in 2008. In some cases, those students may represent a small minority of all students enrolled at the institution. A college's graduation rates can rise or fall significantly over time because of small year-to-year variations in the number of such students who enroll and complete degrees.
About These Data
The Chronicle analyzed changes in graduation rates reported by more than 1,000, four-year public and private nonprofit colleges and universities. We examined only institutions classified as research, master's, or Baccalaureate Colleges—Arts & Sciences by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 2005.
These rates, which colleges report annually to the U.S. Education Department, are calculated as the percentage of all first-time, full-time students entering in the fall seeking bachelor's degrees who completed bachelor's degrees within six years. At some institutions, this definition excludes a significant number of students, for example, those enrolled part time.
The column labels showing a single year -- 2002 through 2008 -- refer to the final year of six-year periods. The six-year period ending in 2008 was the most recent for which comprehensive data were available from the Education Department when The Chronicle published these tables. The six-year period ending in 2002 was the first for which all colleges participating in federal-aid programs were required to report the data to the Education Department. Figures are rounded.
In these tables, we compare rates for the six years ending in 2008 against rates from five years earlier, in 2003.
A college's graduation rate sometimes spikes up or down in a particular year. To account for such fluctuations, The Chronicle also averaged the graduation rates for 2002 and 2003 and compared those sums with the averages of the 2007 and 2008 rates. That approach yielded results similar to those shown when only 2003 and 2008 were compared.
Colleges typically describe their graduation rates using a similar but slightly different set of data, which includes students who completed any degree program, such as associate degrees. The Education Department recommends examining only students seeking bachelor's degrees when comparing four-year institutions because it facilitates consistent comparisons and because producing bachelor's recipients is a core mission of those institutions.
The Chronicle's analysis recognizes that a college's graduation rate may rise if its admissions become more selective. Greater selectivity typically brings more academically prepared students, who in turn are more likely to complete degrees within six years. Conversely, graduation rates can slip when institutions become less selective. We labeled institutions that became more or less selective during the period covered by these graduation rates. The source was Barron's Profile of American Colleges, which assigns colleges among seven tiers of selectivity. We recorded whether a college changed tiers from 1996-7 to 2001-2.
Other changes in student demographics could also have increased how each institution's rate changed over time, and this analysis did not further account for those effects.
Comments
1. 12097973 - December 16, 2010 at 07:28 pm
Alliant International University ended its four-year undergraduate program in 2006, converting it to a two-year bachelor's completion program. The Department's data refer only to a few remaining students admitted as first time, full-time freshman prior to 2006, and thus do not present an accurate picture of the current programs at Alliant. For example, among the cohort of students entering our undergraduate completion program in the Spring of 2008, 60% graduated within two years and another 17% are still enrolled,for a potential completion rate of 77%. Moreover, this is a very small program at Alliant. More than 95 percent of our students are enrolled in graduate and professional programs, and therefore are not included in these data.
Geoffrey M. Cox, PhD
President
Alliant International University
2. ggu_griffin - December 17, 2010 at 03:40 pm
Golden Gate University is also formally challenging the inclusion of our University in this analysis.
GGU's Undergraduate Graduation Rates in reality are quite strong; approximately 50% of the students who have enrolled since 2003 have graduated with their bachelor's degree.
http://www.ggu.edu/undergraduate_programs/student_success/retention_and_graduation
But also, GGU should not have been part of this comparison, and this is why:
1) GGU's undergraduate student population is not in line with the research methodology used by The Chronicle of Higher Ed.
The Chronicle calculated the statistics of "all first-time, full-time students entering in the fall seeking bachelor's degrees who completed bachelor's degrees within six years."
GGU's undergraduate population by definition are all part-time students coming in with transfer units. In fact, this trait for applicants is an admissions requirement for GGU's Undergraduate program tailored specifically to the population GGU serves- working adults in need of flexible scheduling who are looking to finish thier degrees at thier own pace.
2) Since 2003 GGU has had only a total of six UG students who could be classified as "full-time, first-time" enrolled students, a negligible sample size and should be considered an outlier.
3) GGU is a private, non-profit university but by no means a "private research institution", especially in respect to the undergraduate level, which the article states is another characteristic of Universities under analysis. Any Research performed by faculty is purely independent and not sponsored or fiscally supported by the University. GGU's Basic Carnegie classification is Master's Colleges and Universities - Private.
4) The undergraduate population GGU serves is directly counter to the mission of comparative Universities in this study, who are mostly traditional, four-year institutions.
GGU is a non-profit, private university whose mission is to serve working adults through flexible scheduling, online access for the purpose of career advancement, giving students the resources and support to achieve their undergraduate and graduate degrees at their own pace and in tandem with an ever-changing marketplace.
Actual graduation rates for our undergraduate students who began prior to 2007 are, on average, 15% two years after program start, 29% three years after program start, 37% four years after program start, 42% five years after program start, and 47% six years after program.
For a part-time adult population with life always interfering, this is something to be proud of.
Cherron Hoppes
Dean, Undergraduate Programs
Golden Gate University, San Francisco
choppes@ggu.edu
3. 12076763 - December 20, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Regarding the comments from Golden Gate University, above:
- Golden Gate did have very small numbers of students who met the federal definition of which students must be counted in the graduation rate. After Golden Gate pointed this out, The Chronicle added a note in this table to that effect. The table's notes and the original, accompanying article make the point that the definition excludes many students at some institutions; those students' completion rates may not be accurately reflected in the reported graduation rates.
- The data reported in this table cover students seeking bachelor's degrees who enrolled between fall 1996 and fall 2002, not since 2003.
- Golden Gate University was listed as a Doctoral/Research University by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in its Basic categorization for 2005. The Chronicle used that categorization system for all institutions in our report; Carnegie has not yet issued an updated classification system (but plans to.) Carnegie has moved some institutions into different categories over time.
Jeffrey Brainard
Chronicle of Higher Education