Colleges With The Highest Graduation Rates

Harvard University boasts the highest undergrad completion rate of all research universities -- a whopping 98 percent of those enrolled in 2002 graduated by 2008, according to a new report by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

In Graduation Rates Over Time, the Chronicle compared graduation rates at public and private research universities in 2002 and 2008, surveying students who enrolled in 1996 and 2002, respectively.

On Harvard's heels are Yale University and the University of Notre Dame, with rates of 97 and 96 percent. Among public research universities, the University of Virginia had the highest graduation rate in 2008 at 93 percent, followed by the College of William and Mary and the University of California-Berkeley.

The Chronicle also found that 33 percent of universities showed a lower graduation rate in 2008 than in 2002. Some institutions suggest that the decrease in graduation rates may be a reflection of students taking longer than six years to earn a degree.

Below, check out the twelve universities with the highest graduation rates in 2008, and see the Chronicle for a complete list.

What do you think of these findings? Let us know in the comments section.

1 of 12

Harvard University: 98 percent

1 of 13

First Slide

Previous Slide

@

10 People From High School To Avoid This Summer: Slideshow

FAMU Hazing Case: 2 Band Members Plead No Contest

gadgets/slideshows/27592/slide_27592_286066_small.jpg

Robert Fisher's Musical Commencement Speech To Belmont University

Dom Sagolla, Twitter Co-Creator, Tells Becker College Grads To Embrace Constraint

10 Wrong Assumptions Young People Make When Looking For A Summer Job

Employers Target Liberal Arts Majors And College Grads Who Had Internships: Survey

comments(141)

Total comments: 141 | Post a Comment

1 of 13

Rate This Slide

Rank #2  |  Average: 4

Meh That's impressive!

• 
  1
• 
  2
• 
  3
• 
  4
• 
  5
• 
  6
• 
  7
• 
  8
• 
  9
• 
  10

Current Top 5 Slides

loading...

Choose your Top 5 Slides

UserName

 | Become a fan

Picked These as the Top 5 Slides in the Slideshow

loading...

Top User Slides

← Prev|Next →

 | Become a fan

Picked These as the Top 5 Slides in the Slideshow

loading...

Users who voted on this slide

← Prev|Next →

loading...

Comments

[Windsock]

02:32 PM on 12/16/2010

The students who graduated over the last few years and can't get a job now, how are they supposed to repay their college loans?

Extend the loan repayment grace period (capitalization free) until the unemployment rate gets back down to 4%

[Windsock]

02:26 PM on 12/16/2010

Colleges should be required to include their graduation rates alongside their curriculum at each degree program offered in their catalogue.

[Arrive2 net]

02:26 AM on 12/16/2010

The upper percentiles of entering students are most likely to make it through, so if these school didn't have high graduation rates it would be more surprising. The upper percentiles of students will also have reasonable expectations of getting high grades. If you are a high percentile student, it would be heck to go to a school where the curve is so strict you get bad grades.

Bernard Schuster
Arrive2.net

[Moravecglobal]

08:52 PM on 12/15/2010

But the truth is, it’s going to take longer to dig UC Berkeley out of the hole that Chancellor Birgeneau dug than any of us would like. The signs of University of California Berkeley’s relative decline are clear. In 2004, for example, the London-based Times Higher Education ranked UC Berkeley the second leading research university in the world, just behind Harvard; in 2009 that ranking had tumbled to 39th place. Incompetence reigns under Chancellor Birgeneau, Provost Breslauer, Vice-Chancellor Yeary

[sonofsarek]

05:50 PM on 12/15/2010

They graduate due to grade inflation. B/c if they don't graduate, they won't be able to get a good job and donate money back to the university.

[Returners]

06:17 AM on 12/15/2010

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Polk_Groton_Grads.htm



Selective universities justify favoring children of alumni and prospective donors on the grounds that tuition doesn't cover the entire cost of education. These schools say private gifts subsidize scholarships, faculty salaries and other needs. Children of celebrities, they add, enhance an institution's visibility. "I will certainly factor in a history of very significant giving to Stanford," said Robin Mamlet, admissions dean. She added that the university's development office each year provides her with names of applicants whose parents have been major donors.

Ms. Bass was far from the only child of prominent parents in the Groton class of '98. It included children of diplomats, international lawyers and famous writers, as well as other wealthy businesspeople. Harvard admitted a dozen members of the class -- more than any other Ivy League university. At least five of those accepted by Harvard were alumni children, including Matthew Burr. His father, Boston venture capitalist Craig L. Burr, gave his alma mater between $1 million and $5 million in the mid-1990s, according to Harvard records.

Matthew Burr ranked fourth in his Groton class but had an SAT score of 1240. Three-fourths of Harvard students have SAT scores of 1380 or higher. Mr. Burr applied to one other college, Williams, which rejected him. Now a Harvard senior, Matthew Burr says he took the SAT four times. "I just don't test well," he says.

[Jody Dobis]

01:31 AM on 12/15/2010

To whom much is given much is expected.

In addition to the pressures that the school exerts upon their students, I'm sure the parents that are paying the tuition has some influence in the graduation rate.

[tsw22]

11:46 PM on 12/14/2010

I went to a public HS, a decent school, but nothing I would call elite. I always did well in school and on standardized tests, took advanced classes, etc. I went to Columbia University. I had to work reasonably hard to get Bs and B+s -- so did all my friends. I almost never missed a class; I aimed to read as much of the assigned material as possible. (It was never possible to read it all.) This was about 20 years ago. Admission was very selective - but not like it is now. There were definitely legacies; some would likely have been admitted either way - but I doubt all. Everyone talked about the grade inflation at Harvard & Princeton -- but to this day I don't know if that was true then or if it's true now. The rumors persist. I always figured it was about grad school admissions. I can't comment on any of the other Ivies. My experience at Columbia? I couldn't pull an A on any paper (even in my major!) until my SENIOR year because it took that long for me to learn *how to write.* I certainly hadn't learned in high school. It took several years of college-level courses, research practice, & professorial (& grad student) feedback for me to learn how to write properly -- and how to think critically. Some of my peers came in at an "A" level -- but most did not.

[REDSTATEREFUGEE]

12:07 AM on 12/15/2010

X 1 , TSW.....I am pleased to be your first fan, based on your candor in describing your academic history. Your narrative reinforces my belief, as I share with my freshman composition students, that our course is one of the most important they will ever take, not because of me, but because it, hopefully, teaches skill sets that are valuable, not only in academia, but in business and professions later on. I am pleased that Columbia profs consistently provide writing feedback, for I have heard that many professors today do not consider it their responsibility to teach writing, believing that we English instructors shoud have completely honed students in one or two writing courses.

[tsw22]

12:43 AM on 12/15/2010

Hi Redstaterefugee -
Thanks for the fan click. Yes, learning how to write (and how to think, based both on feedback, some socratic method techniques but also simply being in a demanding/challenging academic environment) was the most important element of my education. The more I see of students from large universities who were not -- are not -- required to write as much, the more I remain convinced that they are less and less prepared for their futures, especially because those futures continue to be more difficult to predict as careers change more quickly, jobs/industries become obsolete, etc. Our world is unpredictable, but the ability to communicate effectively is a constant. It pains me to see how fewer and fewer people can even construct a complete, error-free sentence anymore. I experienced this first-hand in grad school, when I often worked in groups with students with degrees from all over the country. I ended up having to edit all of their writing to avoid a low grade because their skills were atrocious. That may sound snobbish, but unfortunately it is simply the truth. They were not incapable of handling the work in class, but they simply did not know the first thing about research, organizing, writing, even basic footnoting. In some cases they came from large universities whose names people would know. Terrifying.

[azatrox]

09:00 PM on 12/14/2010

I've been told that for some of these schools, the hard part is getting in. Once you're in, they don't want to fail you because low graduation rates wouldn't look good (e.g., Harvard, Yale, etc). But I'm rather skeptical of this. First, the handful of people I know who went to Harvard, Yale, Penn, etc., were really bright people. Second, I just can't imagine schools like MIT are ever going to be easy on you.

[GinghamQuaker]

10:28 PM on 12/14/2010

Most schools suffer from grade inflation. But that being said, I agree with you, the kids that got into these schools are incredibly bright (for the most part) and thus are going to do well regardless of where they go.

[Howard53545]

02:57 PM on 12/14/2010

You pay big bucks but at least you graduate.

[sagcat]

02:39 PM on 12/14/2010

To everyone complaining about grade inflation at these schools: exactly how many D & F level students get into these places? Do you honestly think you can go to a place like Duke or Northwestern if you're academic work deserves D's & F's?

Yes it does go back to the selection process - all of these places only admit academically successful students to begin with. Good students in, good students out.

But very importantly, these schools get these kinds of percentages because they care about their students matriculating. Every professor during every semester works with their students to keep them on the right path. There exists overall cultural expectations that you will pass your classes and you will succeed. On a given tuesday night, the thing to do is STUDY. The Universities on this list promote this culture and expect everyone to be on board. If you're not, you don't belong there. But they obviously aren't giving up on people. Students enjoy high levels of support that encourages them to get it together and successfully navigate their four years there.

People can whinge all they want, but the schools on this list got there for a reason.

[alexandracabot]

08:19 PM on 12/14/2010

Thank you for this! If you do the enormous amount of work to get into these schools--perfect high school GPAs, near-perfect SATs, lots of extracurriculars--you're not going to get to college and flunk out. You're just not.

[azatrox]

09:01 PM on 12/14/2010

So are you saying G. W. Bush had near-perfect SAT scores??

[Returners]

04:25 AM on 12/15/2010

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Polk_Groton_Grads.htm

GROTON, Mass. — Of the 79 members of the class of 1998 at the Groton School, 34 were admitted to Ivy League universities.

Not Henry Park. He was ranked 14th in his class at Groton, one of the nation’s premier boarding schools, and scored a stellar 1560 out of 1600 on his SAT college-admission test. But he was spurned by four Ivies — Harvard, Yale, Brown and Columbia universities — as well as Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Most of the students in Mr. Park’s class who were accepted by those universities had less impressive academic credentials than his. What they had instead were certain characteristics such as money, connections, or minority status that helped them vault over him to the universities of their choice.

“I was naive,” says Mr. Park’s mother, Suki Park. “I thought college admissions had something to do with academics.” She and her husband, middle-class Korean immigrants from New Jersey, scrimped to send their son to Groton because of its notable college-placement record.

[skullman]

09:04 PM on 12/14/2010

Didn't George W Bush go to Yale? I think the other way of graduating is if you are a legacy from a rich and powerful family.

[lovbug]

01:05 PM on 12/14/2010

This is beyond ridiculous. Most of these schools are Ivy Leagues and no doubt they would have a high graduation rate. The high tuition people pay to attend those schools justify graduation most of them or that would be a poor investment on anyones part.

[Erica]

12:58 PM on 12/14/2010

That's pretty amazing considering all the life changes that can force one to drop out or postpone school. I guess it's a testament to how hard they have to work to get into those schools as well.

[ruoth]

01:11 PM on 12/14/2010

There's nothing amazing about this... its all about money and societal status. The people who attend these school have never had to go hungry or share a room with 6 other siblings or had to look after their siblings right after turning 18. All they have had to do is sleep in the dorm rooms and go to class (granted they also study hard) while their affluent parents / scholarships take care of the rest... even I would graduate under those circumstances..

[Erica]

01:23 PM on 12/14/2010

Completely disagree. Many of those students come from other countries, which means they're staying and studying no matter what's going on back home. And what about the students whose parents get sick and die (as a friend of mine's did when she was a freshman) or those who get sick themselves during the course of their education (like another friend of mine diagnosed with leukemia junior year). From the Harvard website "this year we are awarding a record-breaking $158 million in need-based scholarship assistance to almost 60% of our students." 60% of their students get some kind of need-based scholarship! Although from your post, it seems like you think people on scholarships don't have to do anything, when I know from experience people on scholarships have to have solid achievements prior to gaining the scholarship, generally have to work to support themselves because the scholarships won't cover the cost of the entire education, and they have to maintain excellent grades. So, I guess if you want to whine about not having attended an Ivy League school yourself, go right ahead. I certainly didn't, but I'm not going to make light of their achievements.

[skullman]

09:06 PM on 12/14/2010

And then there are people like Georgr W Bush.

[GinghamQuaker]

10:30 PM on 12/14/2010

Continuing to bring up George Bush does not diminish the accomplishments of these alumni.

[jmichaelmunger]

11:57 AM on 12/14/2010

Yea but, the 2% of Harvard dropouts go on to become Mark Zuckerburg and Bill Gates...

[one1byke]

11:37 AM on 12/14/2010

"Hard to get in (from High School). Easy to Graduate from..."