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Retention/Graduation Questions and Answers

Transfer student cohorts Retention and graduation rates are also tracked for transfer students and are available on the Institutional Research website; only freshmen rates are reported externally and are the focus of this website.  [More] College Results Online This interactive web tool, created by The Education Trust, has information about student graduation rates at four-year colleges and universities.  [More]

What are retention and graduation rates and how are they measured?

Retention and graduation rates are tracked for incoming freshmen cohorts.  A cohort is defined as all members of an entering class in attendance at the end of the third week of instruction of the fall quarter.  Students who first enter in winter or spring quarters, who are in the high school honors program, or who are non-degree seeking are excluded.

Each succeeding fall term the cohorts are matched against third week enrollment and degree data to determine the number and percentage who are enrolled or who have graduated.  This yields, for each cohort, the percentage of students retained to year N (the N-1 year retention rate), or graduated by year N (the N-1 year graduation rate).  For example, the percentage of students who first enrolled as first-time, first-year freshmen in Fall 1999 and who also enrolled in Fall of 2000 is the 1-year retention rate for the 1999 cohort.  The percentage of the same first-time cohort who graduated any time before Fall 2005 is the 6-year graduation rate.

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