Completing College: A National View of Student Completion Rates

Posted by National Student Clearinghouse on January 22, 2018

Executive Summary
This Signature Report investigates the six-year completion outcomes of the students who began their postsecondary education in fall 2011. The overall national six-year completion rate for the fall 2011 cohort was 56.9 percent, an increase of 2.1 percentage points from the fall 2010 cohort. This higher completion rate represents about 48,000 more graduates than the fall 2010 cohort, even with a slightly smaller cohort size.

Major Findings and Implications
Continued Increase in Overall Completion Rates
One of the major findings from the previous completions report, on the fall 2010 entering cohort, was that the overall completion rate had increased for the first time since the Great Recession, rising 1.9 percentage points to 54.8 percent. Although promising, that was still more than one point lower than the pre-recession high of 56.1 percent reached by the cohort that entered college in 2007. For the current 2011 cohort, the six year completion rate grew by an additional 2.1 points, surpassing the pre-recession rate.

Increases in Traditional-Age Students and Full-Time Enrollments
There was a three percentage point increase in the proportion of traditional-age students, from 73.8 percent to 76.8 percent, and a decrease in the proportion of adult enrollments, from 18.8 to 13.7 percent of the cohort. Prior reports have shown that traditional-age students are more likely than delayed-entry and adult learners to complete a credential within six years. In the 2011 cohort, 61.7 percent of traditional-age students completed a credential, compared to 41.7 percent for adult learners. The shift to a younger cohort alone accounts for some of the rise in the overall completion rate, yet there was also a nearly two percentage point increase in the completion rate for traditional-age students, from 59.9 percent to 61.7 percent, and a nearly one point increase among adult learners, from 40.8 to 41.7 percent.

Along with more traditional-age students, the share of full-time students also increased, from 39.5 percent in 2010 to 45.7 for the 2011 cohort. This contributed directly to the overall increase in the completion rate as well. Specifically, 80.1 percent of students who enrolled exclusively full-time completed a degree, compared to 20.5 percent for exclusively part-time students and 39.5 percent for mixed enrollment students.

Increase in Completion Rates for Students Who Started at Four-Year Public and Four-Year Private Nonprofit Institutions
The share of students enrolling in four-year public institutions increased by 2.7 percent of the cohort, and 1.9 percent more enrolled at four-year private nonprofits, compared to the 2010 cohort. These institutional sectors have higher completion rates to begin with, yet each also showed markedly improved rates this year. The total completion rate for students who started at a four-year public institution increased from 62.4 to 64.7 percent, while the four-year private nonprofit rate grew from 73.9 to 76.0 percent, an increase of over 2 percentage points from the 2010 cohort for both sectors.

Decrease in Two-Year Public Enrollments
There was a substantial decrease in the proportion of students enrolling in two-year public institutions, from 37.3 percent of the 2010 cohort to 33.8 percent of the 2011 cohort. There was also a decline in the total completion rate for two-year starters, from 39.3 percent for the 2010 cohort to 37.5 percent for 2011, regardless of whether the completions occurred at a two-year or a four-year institution. About half of the decline in the share of the cohort, and all of the decline in the completion rate, however, were due to a definitional change: dual enrollment high school students were excluded from the 2011 cohort. Without this exclusion, the completion rate would have increased slightly, to 40.1 percent.

Enrollment and Completion Disparities by Race and Ethnicity
When examined by race and ethnicity, Asian and white students had much higher completion rates (68.9 percent and 66.1 percent, respectively) than Hispanic and black students (48.6 percent and 39.5 percent, respectively). Black students represent the only group that is more likely to stop out or discontinue enrollment than to complete a credential within six years (total completion rate of 39.5 percent, compared to the no longer enrolled rate of 42.8 percent).

Among students who started in four-year public institutions, black students had the lowest six-year completion rate (46.0 percent). The completion rate of Hispanic students was almost 10 percentage points higher (55.7 percent). Over two-thirds of white students (71.7 percent) and three-quarters of Asian students (75.8 percent) completed a degree within the same period.

Completing College – National – 2017