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The national college completion rate increased 2.1 percentage points compared to last year, according to new data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, a nonprofit that tracks the progress of almost all U.S. college students.
The six-year completion rate for students who enrolled in college in the fall of 2011 was 56.9 percent. Last year's rate of 54.8 percent also was up roughly two percentage points from the previous year. That increase followed a two-year slide in national completion rates. However, this year's rate now surpasses the pre-recession high of 56.1 percent for students who started college in 2007.
“For the more than 2.27 million students who started college six years ago, the signs of post-recession recovery are clear: adult students shrank as a share of the cohort, four-year public and private nonprofit institutions increased their share of the cohort, and the total completion rate surpassed the pre-recession high,” Doug Shapiro, the center's executive director, said in a written statement.
However, Shapiro predicted that pressures other than those related to the economy would become bigger factors in the future.
“In the coming years, demographic changes will overtake economic shifts in their impact on college completion rates, as the number of high school graduates declines and their diversity continues to increase,” he said.
“For now, the trend represents a strong recovery in student success rates, across all of higher education, from the declines caused by the recession.”
