Undergraduate Completion

This section analyzes the completion rates of students who first enrolled in postsecondary education institutions in fall 2011. Completion rates were calculated within six years of first enrollment and followed students through spring 2017. Six years represented 300 percent of the normal time at two-year institutions and 150 percent of the normal time at four-year institutions. Completion rates included both full-time and part-time students.

Undergraduate completion rates within six years varied greatly across types of institutions. Across all racial and ethnic groups, students who started at R1 doctoral institutions had the highest six-year completion rate (86.6 percent), followed by students who started at other doctoral (67.6 percent), master’s (66.3 percent), and bachelor’s (64.8 percent) institutions. Completion rates for students who started at special focus (42.8 percent) and associate (41.1 percent) institutions were much lower. R1 doctoral institutions had lower shares of students who did not complete or were not enrolled at any institution six years after initial enrollment, compared with shares of students at master’s institutions and other doctoral institutions.

Across all Carnegie Classifications^[1], Black or African American students consistently had the lowest completion rates of any racial and ethnic group, while White and Asian students tended to have the highest completion rates.