Public High School Graduates and Dropouts from school years 2010-11 and 2011-12

This report presents information on high school graduation and dropout rates for school years 2010-11 and 2011-12. The brief report by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) indicates a national 4-year cohort graduation rate of 79% for school year 2010-11 and 80% for school year 2011-12. This indicates that 4 out of 5 high school students in the country receive a regular high school diploma within 4 years of starting 9th grade.

This calculated rate is based primarily upon the 4-Year Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate collected by the Department of Education’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education from most states. The Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate data have been incorporated into NCES’s existing report on graduation and dropout statistics for the first time starting with this report. The report also includes information on the Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate and the NCES calculated event dropout rate for the same 2 school years.

Additional national findings include:
•    Both Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate and Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate for American Indian/Alaska Native, Black and Hispanic students are below the national average for school years 2010-11 and 2011-12.
•    In both school years 2010-11 and 2011-12 the Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate for female students is higher than the Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate for male students.
•    Public high school event dropout rates remained constant at 3.3% for both school years 2010-11 and 2011-12.