Graduation Rates in Context

The new NCES report (“Placing College Graduation Rates in Context”) is worth taking a look at. While, as they note, there are major limitations to the Department of Education’s graduation rate calculations, the range in graduation rates among similar institutions is striking (and sounds vaguely familiar…). And, they found Black and Hispanic students succeeding most at institutions where they were most highly represented.

Some highlights:

- Among very selective institutions classified as low-income serving, graduation rates varied from 25% for institutions at the 10^th percentile to 75% for institutions at the 90^th percentile.

- Graduation rates were actually slightly higher for Black students compared with White students at the 16 very selective bachelor’s degree institutions with large low-income enrollments.

- Similarly, the smallest gap between White and Hispanic students existed among the moderately selective institutions with large low-income enrollments.

Also interesting is that NCES found that the "high performing" institutions were not easy to categorize based on structural differences. This is good news -- there is a lot ALL colleges can learn from institutions that both enroll a high number of low-income students and maintain high graduation rates.