Highest Retention Rates at 4-Year Colleges
Retention is an early signal of whether students feel supported. It measures the share of first-time, full-time bachelor’s students who return the following fall. This ranking lists the four-year colleges with the highest figure.
We ranked 1,421 four-year colleges with at least 500 undergraduates and a reported retention rate, and show the top 50. The median is 76%, the highest is 99% and the school in 50th place is at 96%. University of Chicago ranks first, and California has the most entries with 8. The median graduation rate across qualifying schools is 57%.
Retention is the first year of the graduation story, so schools here tend to also post high completion rates. A school that keeps students without getting them to a diploma is a different case, so check both columns.
A school that loses many first-year students may be hard to navigate or expensive to stay in, so retention is worth checking whenever you compare two colleges that otherwise look similar.
How this list is built
A college appears here only if it meets every condition below.
- Colleges considered
- All 4-year colleges (public, private nonprofit and for-profit)
- Ranked by retention rate, highest first. Ties are broken by larger undergraduate enrollment, then by name.
- Main campuses only, with at least 60% of core data fields reported
- At least 500 undergraduate students enrolled (fall 2024)
- A reported retention rate value (schools without one are not ranked)
- Data period
- Retention: first-time, full-time students from fall 2023 who returned the next fall.
- Graduation rate: first-time, full-time students who started in fall 2018 (4-year) or fall 2021 (2-year), finishing within 150% of normal time.
- Net price: average for students receiving aid, academic year 2023-24.
- Earnings: median earnings four years after completing, measured in 2022 and 2023 for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 cohorts, in 2024 dollars.
- Acceptance rate: fall 2024 applicants admitted.
- Source: U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard, June 2026 release.
Showing the top 50 of 1,421 qualifying schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table.
| 1 | University of Chicago Chicago, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | 99% | 95% | $14,860 | $127,757 | 4% |
| 2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | 99% | 96% | $20,111 | $161,961 | 5% |
| 3 | Yale University New Haven, CT Private nonprofit · 4-year | 99% | 96% | $23,777 | $112,971 | 4% |
| 4 | Brown University Providence, RI Private nonprofit · 4-year | 99% | 96% | $25,184 | $94,678 | 5% |
| 5 | University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN Private nonprofit · 4-year | 99% | 96% | $26,780 | $100,684 | 11% |
| 6 | University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | 98% | 97% | $28,699 | $124,586 | 5% |
| 7 | Harvard University Cambridge, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | 98% | 97% | $19,066 | $134,794 | 4% |
| 8 | Dartmouth College Hanover, NH Private nonprofit · 4-year | 98% | 96% | $29,519 | $111,883 | 5% |
| 9 | Cornell University Ithaca, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | 98% | 95% | $28,690 | $113,372 | 9% |
| 10 | Stanford University Stanford, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | 98% | 92% | $13,807 | $136,959 | 4% |
| 11 | Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD Private nonprofit · 4-year | 98% | 94% | $18,809 | $117,419 | 6% |
| 12 | Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus Atlanta, GA Public · 4-year | 98% | 93% | $12,116 | $119,180 | 14% |
| 13 | Princeton University Princeton, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year | 98% | 97% | $6,128 | $108,590 | 5% |
| 14 | Northwestern University Evanston, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | 98% | 96% | $29,167 | $109,275 | 8% |
| 15 | Columbia University in the City of New York New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | 98% | 96% | $21,590 | $115,519 | 4% |
| 16 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI Public · 4-year | 98% | 93% | $13,138 | $96,159 | 16% |
| 17 | California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | 98% | 94% | $16,075 | $152,843 | 3% |
| 18 | Be'er Yaakov Talmudic Seminary Spring Valley, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year · Open admission | 98% | 56% | $4,543 | $19,100 | — |
| 19 | Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | 98% | 93% | $31,944 | $132,971 | 12% |
| 20 | Rice University Houston, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | 98% | 95% | $13,370 | $110,080 | 8% |
| 21 | University of Virginia-Main Campus Charlottesville, VA Public · 4-year | 97% | 95% | $21,565 | $91,448 | 17% |
| 22 | University of Florida Gainesville, FL Public · 4-year | 97% | 91% | $6,541 | $77,321 | 24% |
| 23 | Bowdoin College Brunswick, ME Private nonprofit · 4-year | 97% | 95% | $14,398 | $79,722 | 7% |
| 24 | Northeastern University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | 97% | 90% | $30,915 | $101,903 | 5% |
| 25 | Claremont McKenna College Claremont, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | 97% | 93% | $28,849 | $110,798 | 10% |
| 26 | Amherst College Amherst, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | 97% | 94% | $23,367 | $79,243 | 9% |
| 27 | Duke University Durham, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | 97% | 96% | $29,612 | $115,722 | 6% |
| 28 | University of California-Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA Public · 4-year · Hispanic-Serving | 97% | 93% | $12,548 | $77,677 | 9% |
| 29 | Georgetown University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | 97% | 95% | $40,815 | $119,773 | 13% |
| 30 | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, NC Public · 4-year | 97% | 92% | $11,655 | $81,033 | 15% |
| 31 | University of California-Berkeley Berkeley, CA Public · 4-year | 97% | 93% | $13,481 | $96,018 | 11% |
| 32 | Pomona College Claremont, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | 97% | 93% | $19,285 | $77,544 | 7% |
| 33 | Williams College Williamstown, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | 97% | 95% | $17,716 | $80,487 | 8% |
| 34 | Barnard College New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | 97% | 93% | $28,800 | $72,527 | 9% |
| 35 | Yeshivath Viznitz Monsey, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year · Open admission | 97% | 69% | $8,929 | $19,601 | — |
| 36 | Harvey Mudd College Claremont, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | 97% | 93% | $35,924 | $137,100 | 13% |
| 37 | The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX Public · 4-year | 96% | 88% | $19,857 | $79,115 | 27% |
| 38 | Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN Private nonprofit · 4-year | 96% | 93% | $15,846 | $101,204 | 6% |
| 39 | Wellesley College Wellesley, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | 96% | 91% | $25,496 | $72,449 | 14% |
| 40 | University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | 96% | 92% | $32,740 | $95,739 | 10% |
| 41 | Carleton College Northfield, MN Private nonprofit · 4-year | 96% | 90% | $25,407 | $66,841 | 20% |
| 42 | Washington and Lee University Lexington, VA Private nonprofit · 4-year | 96% | 94% | $23,781 | $100,514 | 14% |
| 43 | University of Maryland-College Park College Park, MD Public · 4-year | 96% | 89% | $15,678 | $84,365 | 45% |
| 44 | Emory University Atlanta, GA Private nonprofit · 4-year | 96% | 91% | $22,585 | $90,139 | 11% |
| 45 | Florida State University Tallahassee, FL Public · 4-year | 96% | 84% | $11,297 | $66,924 | 24% |
| 46 | American Public University System Charles Town, WV For-profit · 4-year · Open admission | 96% | 55% | $9,597 | $70,107 | — |
| 47 | Tufts University Medford, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | 96% | 93% | $39,998 | $97,474 | 11% |
| 48 | Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | 96% | 91% | $41,704 | $96,145 | 16% |
| 49 | Swarthmore College Swarthmore, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | 96% | 93% | $23,149 | $65,618 | 7% |
| 50 | New York University New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | 96% | 88% | $37,050 | $89,427 | 9% |
States with schools on this list
Browse every college in these states.