Six-year graduation rates at the top institutions, and over all, were best at four-year private nonprofit institutions, which had more than double the rate of for-profit institutions. The institution with the largest bachelor’s-degree-seeking cohort that had a graduation rate over 80 percent was Texas A&M University at College Station. Among institutions that reported their transfer-out rates, for-profit institutions had the lowest rates.
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Public institutions
| 1. | U. of Virginia | 3,240 | 94.2% | 3.5% |
| 2. | U. of California at Berkeley | 4,081 | 91.7% | - |
| 3. | College of William & Mary | 1,396 | 91.5% | 6.9% |
| 4. | U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor | 6,443 | 91.2% | - |
| 5. | U. of California at Los Angeles | 4,632 | 91.1% | 2.2% |
| 6. | U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | 3,944 | 91.1% | 2.6% |
| 7. | U. of California at Irvine | 4,404 | 87.2% | 8.5% |
| 8. | U. of California at San Diego | 3,947 | 87.2% | - |
| 9. | U. of Florida | 6,345 | 87.2% | 1.6% |
| 10. | College of New Jersey | 1,421 | 86.6% | 10.6% |
| 11. | U. of Maryland at College Park | 3,918 | 86.6% | 4.4% |
| 12. | Georgia Institute of Technology | 2,706 | 86.3% | 2.9% |
| 13. | Pennsylvania State U. at University Park | 7,319 | 85.5% | - |
| 14. | U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | 6,902 | 85.3% | - |
| 15. | U. of Wisconsin at Madison | 5,920 | 84.9% | - |
| 16. | U. of California at Davis | 4,489 | 84.7% | - |
| 17. | U. of Georgia | 4,667 | 83.9% | 6.6% |
| 18. | U. of Washington | 5,460 | 83.9% | - |
| 19. | Virginia Tech | 5,131 | 83.8% | - |
| 20. | Ohio State U. | 6,651 | 83.7% | 9.0% |
| 21. | Binghamton U. | 2,196 | 83.0% | 13.9% |
| 22. | U. of Delaware | 3,365 | 82.9% | - |
| 23. | U. of California at Santa Barbara | 3,696 | 82.3% | - |
| 24. | U. of Connecticut | 3,288 | 82.3% | 12.8% |
| 25. | James Madison U. | 3,995 | 81.9% | - |
| 26. | U. of Pittsburgh main campus | 3,698 | 81.4% | - |
| 27. | U. of Texas at Austin | 7,232 | 81.2% | - |
| 28. | Clemson U. | 2,977 | 81.1% | 15.7% |
| 29. | State U. of New York College at Geneseo | 1,009 | 80.9% | 13.1% |
| 30. | Texas A&M U. at College Station | 8,033 | 80.2% | 15.5% |
| | Median for 572 institutions | 1,107 | 47.9% | 24.6% |
Private nonprofit institutions
| 1. | Manhattan School of Music | 93 | 100.0% | - |
| 2. | Yale U. | 1,343 | 97.8% | - |
| 3. | Princeton U. | 1,311 | 97.5% | - |
| 4. | Harvard U. | 1,663 | 97.2% | - |
| 5. | Pomona College | 401 | 97.0% | - |
| 6. | Dartmouth College | 1,136 | 96.6% | - |
| 7. | Brown U. | 1,495 | 95.5% | - |
| 8. | U. of Pennsylvania | 2,363 | 95.3% | - |
| 9. | U. of Notre Dame | 2,056 | 95.1% | - |
| 10. | Davidson College | 499 | 94.8% | - |
| 11. | Duke U. | 1,749 | 94.6% | - |
| 12. | Bowdoin College | 507 | 94.5% | - |
| 13. | Georgetown U. | 1,569 | 94.3% | - |
| 14. | U. of Chicago | 1,383 | 94.2% | - |
| 15. | Columbia U. | 1,392 | 94.1% | - |
| 16. | Swarthmore College | 387 | 94.1% | - |
| 17. | Washington U. in St. Louis | 1,619 | 94.0% | - |
| 18. | Williams College | 548 | 94.0% | - |
| 19. | Stanford U. | 1,672 | 93.9% | - |
| 20. | Cornell U. | 3,172 | 93.9% | - |
| 21. | California Institute of Technology | 220 | 93.6% | - |
| 22. | Northwestern U. | 2,126 | 93.5% | - |
| 23. | Amherst College | 489 | 93.5% | 1.4% |
| 24. | Middlebury College | 577 | 93.4% | 3.1% |
| 25. | Harvey Mudd College | 194 | 93.3% | 4.1% |
| 26. | Rice U. | 944 | 93.1% | - |
| 27. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 1,063 | 92.8% | - |
| 28. | Claremont McKenna College | 314 | 92.7% | - |
| 29. | Boston College | 2,268 | 92.5% | 5.4% |
| 30. | Johns Hopkins U. | 1,322 | 92.4% | 3.7% |
| | Median for 973 institutions | 356 | 57.2% | 24.9% |
For-profit institutions
| 1. | Pima Medical Institute at Tucson | 175 | 78.3% | - |
| 2. | Monroe College (N.Y.) | 413 | 70.9% | 11.6% |
| 3. | International Business College at Fort Wayne (Ind.) | 55 | 70.9% | - |
| 4. | School of Visual Arts | 667 | 63.9% | 20.5% |
| 5. | Bob Jones U.* | 576 | 60.4% | 19.6% |
| 6. | Living Arts College at School of Communication Arts | 83 | 56.6% | - |
| 7. | Neumont U. | 132 | 53.8% | - |
| 8. | LIM College | 328 | 53.4% | - |
| 9. | Art Institute of California-Silicon Valley | 62 | 50.0% | 3.2% |
| 10. | U. of Antelope Valley | 75 | 49.3% | - |
| 11. | Southern California Institute of Technology | 150 | 48.7% | 0.7% |
| 12. | Art Institute of York-Pennsylvania | 99 | 48.5% | 4.0% |
| 13. | Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design | 143 | 46.9% | - |
| 14. | Santa Fe U. of Art and Design | 105 | 46.7% | 1.0% |
| 15. | Art Institute of California at San Diego | 179 | 45.3% | 5.6% |
| 16. | Grand Canyon U. | 816 | 42.8% | - |
| 17. | Full Sail U. | 12,521 | 41.4% | - |
| 18. | Illinois Institute of Art at Schaumburg | 135 | 40.0% | - |
| 19. | DigiPen Institute of Technology | 131 | 39.7% | 25.2% |
| 20. | Art Institute of Ft. Lauderdale | 175 | 38.3% | 2.3% |
| | Median for 137 institutions | 174 | 24.1% | 5.6% |
* Bob Jones University announced in 2017 that it had regained nonprofit status, after having lost it 34 years earlier because of its ban on interracial dating and marriage.
Note: Only degree-granting U.S. colleges that are eligible to participate in Title IV federal financial-aid programs, with at least 50 students in the degree-seeking cohort, are included. Six-year graduation rates reflect the percentage of first-time, full-time, bachelor’s-degree-seeking students who entered in 2010 and completed bachelor’s or equivalent degrees at the same institution within six years (by August 31, 2016). Cohorts were adjusted to exclude students who died, were permanently disabled, or left to serve in the military or with a foreign-aid agency or official church mission. Students who transferred and then graduated from another institution are not counted in the data as having graduated. A hyphen indicates that no transfer students were reported. Reporting was optional for many colleges. Nonreporting institutions were excluded from the calculation of the median transfer rate. Percentages are rounded, but ranks are ordered on the basis of unrounded figures. Questions or comments on the Almanac should be sent to the Almanac editor.
Source: Chronicle analysis of U.S. Department of Education data