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Wednesday, December 20, 2017

More Freshmen Persisting to Graduation

A small but significant uptick in the number of U.S. college students attaining their degrees last spring is being hailed as a positive indicator for the national economy.

“For the more than 2.27 million students who started college six years ago, the signs of postrecession recovery are clear: adult students shrank as a share of the cohort, four-year public and private nonprofit institutions increased their share of the cohort, and the total completion rate surpassed the prerecession high,” said Doug Shapiro, executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) Research Center, in its annual report on enrollment and graduation patterns for each incoming class. A key benchmark is the graduation percentage after six years.

Approximately 56.9% of the fall 2011 freshmen had graduated as of 2017. That outpaces the six-year graduation mark for the 2010 freshman class (54.8%) and the 2007 freshman class (56.1%), which had previously been the highest to date.

Almost 12% of the 2011 starters are still taking courses and the report anticipates many of those students will achieve a degree within the next two years, based on the freshman class of 2009, which managed to raise its total completion rate this year by six percentage points over its six-year rate.

Four-year schools overall had higher completion rates than two-year schools (66.7% versus 37.7%), but a much higher percentage of students who enrolled first at two-year schools would go on to earn a degree or certificate within six years (37.7%, compared to 8% of students who began at a four-year institution).