College completion rate: 60.4 percent at the end of eight years.

 

This supplemental feature to the Signature Report on College Completions released in December 2016, contains an analysis of the eight-year completion outcomes for the fall 2010 cohort. In our previous signature reports on college completions, we provided a brief analysis of the eight-year outcomes following the main discussion of six-year outcomes. 

In response to the growing need for educational researchers to extend the time period given for graduation rate analyses, the Signature Report series on College Completions will now include an expanded examination of the eight-year completion outcomes as a supplemental feature.  

Key Results 

■The national total completion rate for the fall 2010 cohort increased 5.6 percentage points, from 54.8 percent at the end of six years to 60.4 percent at the end of eight years.  

■Four-year public and two-year public institution starters had fairly similar completion gains. The completion rate for four-year public starters increased 6.4 percentage points (from 62.4 percent to 68.8 percent) whereas the completion rate for two-year public starters increased 6.0 percentage points (from 39.3 percent to 45.3 percent). 

■Two-year public starters had the highest proportion of completions at a different institution (36.8 percent of all completions) by the end of eight years in comparison to four-year public (24.1 percent) and four-year private nonprofit starters (20.3 percent).  

■The completion rate increased approximately 6 percentage points for both men and women. Overall, women complete a credential at higher rates than men, where the six-year completion rate for women (58.2 percent) is higher than the eight-year completion rate for men (57.4 percent). 

■For four-year public starters, the Hispanic student total completion rate increased 8.3 percentage points, from 55.0 percent to 63.3 percent, representing the largest completion increase in comparison to any other race and ethnicity group. The second largest increase was observed for Asian students (7.4 percentage points increase from 71.7 to 79.2 percent), closely followed by Black students (7.2 percentage points increase from 45.9 percent to 53.1 percent) then white students (6.0 percentage points from 67.2 percent to 73.1 percent).

 ■Among two-year public starters, Asian students’ completion rate increased from 43.8 percent at the end of six years to 54.5 percent at the end of eight years, representing an 11 percentage point total increase. This was followed by Hispanic students with a 7.2 percentage point increase (from 33.0 percent to 40.3 percent), white students with a 6.0 percentage point increase (from 45.1 percent to 51.1 percent), and black students with a 5.1 percentage point increase (from 30.9 percent to 33.0 percent). 

 ■In terms of four-year completions for two-year starters, an additional 13.8 percent of Asian students subsequently completed a four-year degree at the end of eight years (from 23.0 percentage points to 36.8 percentage points), followed by Hispanic students, with an additional 7.9 percent total four-year completions (from 10.8 percentage points to 18.7 percentage points.)