Six-year credential completion rates are the highest in over a decade, according to a new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Of all the students who entered a postsecondary program in 2018, 61.1% have earned a credential, the highest completion rate across the 12 cohorts studied since 2007.
While completion rates in the four-year public and private nonprofit sectors have stagnated since reaching their respective highs with the 2015 cohort, gradual increases in the public two-year sector have helped strengthen the national average.
Arizona, Kentucky and Utah experienced more than a 2% increase in student completion rates over last year. Hawaii, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia experienced more than a 1% bump. Four states saw decreases.
“Higher completion rates are welcome news for colleges and universities still struggling to regain enrollment levels from before the pandemic,” said Doug Shapiro, executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. “Even as fewer students are starting college this fall, more of those who started back in 2018 have stayed enrolled through to the finish.”
Preliminary numbers from the Clearinghouse this fall showed that undergraduate enrollment was largely buoyed by non-first-year students, which may suggest strong persistence rates and a desire to receive a credential.
Several key indicators forecast how likely a student is to complete their credential.
- Dual enrollment status: 71.1% of students who enrolled in college in fall 2018 with prior dual enrollment experience completed their credential, which is 13.7 percentage points higher than those without it.
- Part-time vs. full-time: The completion rate for full-time students was 67.2%, whereas for part-time students it was 33.7%.
- Family wealth: Since 2010, the more affluent the neighborhood a student hails from, the stronger their completion rate. The difference in completion rates between the top neighborhood income quintile and the bottom was 27.6 percentage points. The completion gap between the two has shrunk by 2.2 percentage points over the past eight years.
- Student transfers: Students who transferred make up less than 20% of those who completed their first credential in six years, and they comprise 57% of those still enrolled in postsecondary education.
- Gender: Since 2007, the completion rates among female cohorts have been at least five percentage points higher than male students.
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