Degree Completion Rate Drops for First Time in a Decade

For the first time in a decade, the number of undergraduates earning a college degree has dropped.

A new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC) found that undergraduate degree holders dropped by 1.6% in the 2021 to 2022 academic year—roughly 58,800 fewer people than the year before, Forbes reports.

LARGEST DROP IN FIRST-TIME GRADS SINCE 2012

A big reason why the past academic year saw fewer undergraduate degree holders is because of an unprecedented loss of 50,700 first-time grads (-1.9%) compared to the year before. The drop was the largest decline in first-time grads since 2012 to 2013.

The 2021 to 2022 academic year only saw 3.6 million people earning an undergraduate-level degree—the lowest number in four years. When broken down by degree type, associate degrees saw a 7.6% decline while baccalaureate degrees reflected a 2.4% decline. On the other hand, first-time degree owners experienced an increase of 9%.

IMPACT OF THE PANDEMIC

Most reports measure the impact of the pandemic by following the decline in enrollment for first-time and transfer students at two-year or four-year universities. The NSCRC report, however, is one of the first to measure the pandemic’s impact by tracking the decline in degree completion.

“The pandemic’s impact on higher education has gone beyond the declining numbers of current students and is now showing up as a drop in the annual number of new graduates as well, taking it all the way back to the level of 2016-17,” Doug Shapiro, Executive Director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, says in a news release. “This is a setback to those seeking higher postsecondary attainment rates, leaving the nation and many states falling further behind on goals for a highly educated workforce.”

Sources: Forbes, National Student Clearinghouse Research Center

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