The Undergraduate Degree Earners Report provides a demographic and education credential profile for all students who graduate with an undergraduate-level credential, encompassing undergraduate certificates and associate and bachelor’s degrees. In this report, we profile students who earned undergraduate credentials during the most recent academic year (2022-23), focusing on first-time completers versus those with a prior award.
The Completing College report series provides a comprehensive overview of postsecondary completion trends nationally and by state. For all students who enter postsecondary education for the first time each year, it examines the diverse pathways the student traversed toward completion, as well as a degree or certificate completion rate within six and eight years of enrolling.
Of all associate degrees reported to the Clearinghouse for the 2010-11 academic year, 575,067 were earned by students with no previous degrees or certificates. Within the next six academic years, 65.1 percent of these students enrolled at four-year institutions and 41.4 percent earned bachelor’s degrees.
Nationally, 14.6 percent of all 2013-14 college graduates attended college in at least one other state or territory in the 10 years prior to receiving a credential.
Just over 9% of all students attended more than one institution during the 2012-13 academic year. Overall, student mobility rates increased from 2010-11 to 2011-12, and then stabilized in 2012-13.
From 2007-08 to 2010-11, the number of degrees awarded to students age 25 and older increased by 22%, compared to 17% for those under age 25.
For many students, the path to successfully completing a degree at a four-year institution includes enrollment at one or more two-year institutions. In the 2010-11 academic year, 45 percent of all students who completed a degree at a four-year institution had previously enrolled at a two-year institution.
On average, 15.1 percent of all U.S. postsecondary students who received undergraduate degrees in 2010-11 had previously attended college in at least one other state or territory. The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center has identified the percentage of undergraduate degree completers in the 2010-11 academic year who had prior enrollments in at least one other state or territory.