The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center recently published a report that focuses on the six-year completion outcomes of the fall 2014 cohort of beginning college students nationally and by state, and the eight-year completion outcomes of the fall 2012 cohort of beginning students, through June 2020. The national completion rate counts all students who enter postsecondary education for the first time every year, enrolling full-time or part-time at two-year or four-year institutions, and completing at any U.S. degree-granting institution. This includes those who complete after a transfer, not just at the institution where students first enrolled. These specifications allow results to more fully capture today’s students’ diverse pathways to success which involve mobility across institutions and across state lines, re-entry after stop-out, and changes in enrollment intensities. Among the key findings:
- The national six-year overall completion rate has reached 60.1 percent after having made the smallest gain of the last five years.
- The six-year completion rate appears to have reached a plateau and has stalled largely because traditional-aged students and community college starters have lost ground.
- The national eight-year completion rate fell for the first time in three years, by 0.5 percentage points to 61.3 percent.
- The marginal increase in completion rates that arose from a student’s additional two years of study, between the sixth- and eighth-year, shrunk.
- Community colleges are the only institution type to experience a drop in the six-year completion rate, reversing the upward trends over the previous two cohort years.
- Private nonprofit four-year institutions made a 0.2 percentage point gain, while public four-year colleges improved by 0.7 percentage points.
- For-profit four-year institution completion rates jumped 3.1 percentage points, which marks a combined increase of over 10 percentage points in the last four years. This 10-year increase, however, has little impact on the national rate, as less than 2 percent of the entire six-year cohort starts at a for-profit four-year college.
- The six-year completion rate of community college starters declined for Hispanic and Black students despite previous growth.
- Only Asian students made gains, whose rate improved by 1.3 percentage points.
- Black students who started at public four-year institutions made stronger gains in their six-year completion rates than white students.
- Traditional aged student completion rates have declined after having increased for four straight years. On the contrary, adult students continue to make progress. Men’s completion rates have been improving more than women’s.
- Similar to national trends, the six-year completion rate was slow to improve at the state level, with more states experiencing a decline than last year. These declines are largely due to decreased completion at community colleges in many states.
