High School Graduation Rates Continue to Move in the Right Direction

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic dra­mat­i­cal­ly dis­rupt­ed the 2019–2020 aca­d­e­m­ic year and has already changed how the 2020–2021 school year will unfold. How­ev­er, recent­ly released data — which speaks to pre-pan­dem­ic trends in edu­ca­tion — is encouraging.

The Unit­ed States extend­ed its long record of steady or improved grad­u­a­tion rates through the 2017–2018 school year, which is the most recent year of data available.

Nation­wide, 15% of high school stu­dents failed to grad­u­ate on time — the same rate as the 2016–2017 school year and an improve­ment of 3 per­cent­age points com­pared to 2013–2014.

Also reas­sur­ing: Time­ly grad­u­a­tion rates for four racial or eth­nic groups grew more com­mon from 2016–2017 to 2017–2018. And, while dis­par­i­ties remain a per­sis­tent con­cern, no racial or eth­nic group has expe­ri­enced a year-over-year increase in the share of stu­dents fail­ing to grad­u­ate on time since 2013–2014.

A clos­er look at these trends reveal:

• For Non-His­pan­ic Amer­i­can Indi­an stu­dents: The like­li­hood of fail­ing to grad­u­ate on time improved by 1 per­cent­age point — to 27% — from 2016–2017 to 2017–2018 and 3 per­cent­age points over the last five aca­d­e­m­ic years. Despite these gains, Non-His­pan­ic Amer­i­can Indi­an stu­dents are still most like­ly to miss the grad­u­a­tion mark when com­pared to their peers in all oth­er racial and eth­nic groups.
  
  
• For Non-His­pan­ic Black stu­dents: The like­li­hood of fail­ing to grad­u­ate on time improved by 1 per­cent­age point — to 21% — from 2016–2017 to 2017–2018 and 7 per­cent­age points over the last five aca­d­e­m­ic years. No oth­er racial or eth­nic groups expe­ri­enced such a sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment over the same five-year period.
  
  
• For His­pan­ic or Lati­no stu­dents of all races: The like­li­hood of fail­ing to grad­u­ate on time improved by 1 per­cent­age point — to 19% — from 2016–2017 to 2017–2018 and 5 per­cent­age points over the last five aca­d­e­m­ic years.
  
  
• For Non-His­pan­ic white stu­dents: The like­li­hood of fail­ing to grad­u­ate on time held steady at 11% from 2016–2017 to 2017–2018 and improved by 2 per­cent­age points over the last five aca­d­e­m­ic years. Stu­dents in this demo­graph­ic group con­tin­ue to run the low­est risk of miss­ing the grad­u­a­tion mark when com­pared to their peers of color.

High school grad­u­a­tion rates are a key indi­ca­tor of child well-being in the Unit­ed States and are tracked in the KIDS COUNT Index, which is report­ed annu­al­ly in the KIDS COUNT Data Book.