6-YEAR GRADUATION RATES
Six-year graduation rate help measure students’ success in the business program after being admitted. It accounts for 25% of the Admissions category score.
A high graduation rate suggests that a program supports students to persist and complete their degrees, even if they don’t finish within the traditional four years. It reflects how well the institution helps students stay on track academically, financially, and personally. It is also the metric tracked by The U.S. Department of Education, through its National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School (ranked No. 8 overall) reported the highest graduate rate out of all ranked programs at 99.4%. In other words, almost all students who enroll will graduate with a business degree.
The table below shows the highest and lowest six-year graduation rates from our 2026 business school ranking.
High & Low Graduation Rates |
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HIGHEST |
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2026 Rank |
School |
6-year Grad Rate |
| 8 | University of North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) | 99.4% |
| 2 | University of Virginia (McIntire) | 99.2% |
| 12 | Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) | 99.0% |
| 10 | Emory University (Goizueta) | 98.1% |
| 13 | Wake Forest University | 98.0% |
| 1 | University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) | 97.6% |
| 36 | University of Georgia (Terry) | 96.8% |
| 19 | University of Washington (Foster) | 95.9% |
| 9 | University of Notre Dame (Mendoza) | 95.0% |
| 3 | Cornell University (Dyson SC Johnson) | 94.9% |
| 4 | University of Michigan (Ross) | 94.7% |
| 6 | New York University (Stern) | 94.7% |
| 7 | Georgetown University (McDonough) | 94.4% |
| 14 | Villanova University | 94.2% |
| 35 | Brigham Young University (Marriott) | 94.0% |
LOWEST |
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2026 Rank |
School |
6-year Grad Rate |
| 98 | University of Michigan-Dearborn | 69.9% |
| 90 | Bowling Green State University (Schmidthorst) | 69.7% |
| 70 | St. John’s University (Tobin) | 69.0% |
| 65 | University of Evansville (Schroeder) | 68.5% |
| 74 | Marian University | 68.5% |
| 85 | Adelphi University (Willumstad) | 68.0% |
| 82 | Roger Williams University (Gabelli) | 67.0% |
| 94 | University of Texas at Dallas (Jindal) | 67.0% |
| 80 | Hult International Business School | 66.6% |
| 92 | University of Mary Washington | 66.0% |
| 89 | Texas State University (McCoy) | 65.0% |
| 88 | Longwood University | 64.0% |
| 102 | University of the Pacific (Eberhardt) | 62.9% |
| 72 | Towson University | 62.0% |
| 87 | Hofstra University (Zarb) | 62.0% |
| 108 | Northern Illinois University | 62.0% |
| 97 | Iona University (LaPenta) | 60.0% |
| 109 | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (Lubar) | 58.0% |
| 110 | Kennesaw State University (Coles) | 49.6% |
NEXT PAGE: Acceptance and graduation rates at all 2026 ranked business schools
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