Graduation and Retention Rates: What They Measure and Miss

A college’s graduation rate is the share of an entering group of students who finish a degree or certificate within 150% of the normal time, which is typically six years for a bachelor’s degree and three years for an associate degree. Its retention rate is the share of first-year students who come back for a second year. Both are useful early warning signs of whether students tend to stay and finish, and both leave out a lot of students. This guide explains how the federal definitions work, what recent national figures look like, and how to compare schools without being misled.

Key takeaways

• Graduation rate here means first-time, full-time students who complete within 150% of normal program time (the measure this site uses from College Scorecard). Retention rate is the share of first-time students who return the next fall.
• These rates cover only part of the student body. Part-time students, students who transfer in and students who start outside the fall term are not in the main IPEDS graduation rate.
• A student who transfers and finishes elsewhere counts as a non-completer at the first school.
• National benchmarks: for the fall 2014 entry cohort at four-year colleges, the six-year graduation rate was 64% overall; for the fall 2019 entry cohort, first-year retention was 82% at four-year colleges (National Center for Education Statistics, NCES).
• Compare a school with similar schools, and compare more than one measure, including the net price and earnings.

How the measures are defined

Graduation rate (150% of normal time). Colleges report to the federal IPEDS survey on first-time, full-time students who started in the fall (or, for schools on non-fall calendars, all first-time full-time students) and finished within 150% of the expected time. For a bachelor’s degree, that is typically six years. For an associate degree, typically three years. For certificate programs the period is scaled to the program’s length. The College Scorecard documentation also notes that the four-year versus less-than-four-year designation depends on the institution’s level, not on the degree a given student seeks, so an associate-degree student at a four-year school is measured at 150% of the associate program’s time.

This site shows the Scorecard 150% rate. In our data, the four-year rate refers to the fall 2018 starting cohort (or 2018–19 academic year, depending on the school’s calendar), and the rate for institutions that award less than four-year degrees refers to the fall 2021 cohort. Scorecard also publishes related measures, such as completion at 100% of normal time and an eight-year outcome measure for different student groups, which we do not use as the headline figure.

Retention rate. According to Scorecard, retention is the proportion of full-time, first-time undergraduates from one fall who are enrolled again the following fall, including those who completed a program before the follow-up. At four-year colleges, the rate covers bachelor’s-seeking students; at less-than-four-year institutions, it covers all degree- or certificate-seeking students. The profile on this site describes it as the first-year students returning the next fall.

What the numbers look like nationally

NCES’s Condition of Education gives these recent benchmarks for first-time, full-time cohorts:

Measure	Cohort	Result
Six-year graduation, four-year colleges	Fall 2014	64% overall; 63% public, 68% private nonprofit, 29% private for-profit
150% completion, two-year colleges	Fall 2017	34% completed a credential, 14% transferred
First-year retention, four-year colleges	Fall 2019	82% overall; 82% public, 81% private nonprofit, 63% private for-profit
First-year retention, two-year colleges	Fall 2019	61% public, 68% private nonprofit, 67% private for-profit

Selectivity also shows up. For the fall 2014 cohort, NCES reported six-year graduation of about 90% at four-year institutions that admitted fewer than 25% of applicants, and 28% at open-admission four-year institutions. Retention follows a similar pattern, with the most selective public and private nonprofit colleges retaining around 96% and 92% and the least selective around 59% and 64%. Those gaps reflect who enrolls, how prepared and how supported students are, and whether students attend part time or work, not simply how good the teaching is. See what acceptance rate means.

An illustrative example

These numbers are illustrative and not from a real college.

Suppose College A starts 1,000 first-time, full-time students in the fall. By the next fall, 800 are enrolled again (retention of 80%). Within six years, 620 have earned a bachelor’s degree at College A (graduation of 62%). Another 150 transferred to other colleges, and 100 of them finished degrees there; 230 left without finishing. College A’s reported graduation rate counts only the 620, so it understates the 720 students (72%) who did end up with a bachelor’s degree. Two schools with the same 62% rate could differ a lot in how many students transferred or came back later. That is the main limitation of the figure.

Who is left out

Scorecard’s documentation says plainly that excluding part-time students, transfer students and students who do not start in the fall makes the rates less relevant for those groups, and that full-time, first-time students make up fewer than half of all college students, and even fewer at community colleges. This matters most if you plan to:

• attend part time while you work;
• transfer in from another college;
• return to school after a gap.

IPEDS also collects an “outcomes” measure that looks at eight years after entry for four groups, including part-time and non-first-time students, but this site’s headline rate is the standard 150% measure. If you fit one of the excluded groups, treat the rate as a rough indicator.

How to compare fairly

1. Compare like with like. A community college, a flagship university and a for-profit certificate school serve different students. Use the same level and control (public, private nonprofit, for-profit). The college finder helps.
2. Look at retention and graduation together. Low retention in year one often precedes a low graduation rate. High retention with lower graduation may reflect students who need more than six years.
3. Consider the student mix. Schools that enroll more Pell Grant recipients and part-time students usually have lower rates, partly for reasons outside the school’s control. Scorecard publishes rates by Pell status for many schools; check the college’s own data.
4. Watch small cohorts. A school with a few dozen first-time, full-time students can swing sharply year to year. Scorecard provides pooled rates and suppresses some rates for institutions with fewer than 30 students in the cohort.
5. Add cost and outcomes. A school with a high graduation rate but a high net price may not be a better deal. See net price vs. sticker price and reading Scorecard earnings data.

Common mistakes

• Treating the rate as your personal odds. It describes an average cohort, not you.
• Reading transfers as failures. A student who transfers up and graduates elsewhere appears as a non-completer at the first school.
• Comparing a four-year rate to a two-year rate. The timeframes and student populations differ.
• Ignoring missing data. Where a rate is missing, the school may not have reported it or the cohort may be too small; do not assume it is low.
• Assuming a high rate means good value. Pair it with net price and debt.

What to do next

• Check the graduation and retention rate on each profile in the college finder and compare with peers.
• Look at schools in your state in colleges by state and in the rankings.
• Estimate your cost with the net price calculator.
• See how this site defines each metric.
• If you may start at a community college, read community college vs. four-year.

This guide is educational and not individualized advice. National benchmarks are from NCES for the cohorts named; the Scorecard values on this site come from the data release described in our methodology.