Yearly Progress and Completion

December 4, 2025

The Yearly Progress and Completion report focuses on student progress toward credential attainment by tracking cohorts of students who entered postsecondary education in the fall of each academic year. The report combines a year-over-year look at each cohort’s journey toward completion with an in-depth analysis of six-and eight-year cohort completion rates. In this report, completion is defined as graduating with an undergraduate certificate, associate degree, or bachelor’s degree. Progress and completion outcomes are presented at the national level and by state. See the Methodological Notes and Data Appendix for details on additional variables and levels of disaggregation.

The longitudinal data dashboards include the yearly progress and completion data for learners who entered postsecondary education in one of twelve cohorts (the fall semesters of 2008 through 2019). All full-time and part-time degree-seeking students at any U.S. degree-granting institution are included in this report.

The completion rates account for all students who enter postsecondary education for the first time each year, enrolling full-time or part-time at two-year or four-year institutions, and completing at any U.S. degree-granting institution. The results include those who complete after transfer, not just completions at the starting institution.

Highlights

Steady Six-Year Completion Rate: The national six-year completion rate for the fall 2019 cohort was 61.1 percent, holding steady for the fourth cohort in a row (61.1-61.4% since 2016). This year’s six-year completion rate declined slightly compared to the last cohort (-0.3 pp) due to a slight increase in students across sectors remaining enrolled after six years (+0.4 pp; 9.0%) rather than stopping out or completing.

Steady Eight-Year Completion Rate: The eight-year completion rate for the cohort starting in fall 2017 remained at 64.8 percent, tied with the previous cohort for highest of the cohorts tracked. Most of the improvement in the eight-year rate comes from more students finishing within six years, not from more students finishing in their seventh or eighth year. In fact, the share of additional completers in years seven and eight has declined over time (-1.6 pp for 2017 cohort compared to 2008 cohort).

Enrollment Status: Full-time students remain significantly more likely to earn a degree, with 67.1 percent of full-time 2019 starters completing by year six and only 25.1 percent stopping out. In contrast, students who started attending part-time had a much higher stopout rate (51.7%) and a much lower completion rate (34.1%) by year six.

State-Level Variations: Six-year completion rates for the fall 2019 cohort remained steady for most states compared to the previous cohort, with only ten states seeing improvements of one percentage point or more.

Student Characteristics: Disparities across student groups persist. The six-year completion rates for students aged 21 to 24 and 25 or older remain similar to each other and much lower than completion rates for students who start college at 20 or younger (35.6% and 36.6%, respectively, vs 63.8%). At every income level, in every year, students from more affluent neighborhoods had sharply higher completion rates than those from lower income backgrounds.

Dual Enrollment: Students with prior dual enrollment are more likely to stay enrolled and earn a credential than their peers without prior dual enrollment. At the end of their sixth year, 71.1 percent of prior dual enrollees in the 2019 cohort earned a credential compared to 57.2 percent of students without prior dual enrollment. Stopout rates suggest that most non-completers without prior dual enrollment are not taking longer to earn their credential, but are stopping out of postsecondary education entirely; 1 in 3 (33.3%) students without prior dual enrollment are no longer enrolled by year six, while only 1 in 5 (21.0%) prior dual enrollees have stopped out.