Grad School Completion Lags Despite Growth

Graduate school has become an increasingly common educational pathway; the share of U.S. adults with a graduate degree has nearly doubled over the past two decades, according to the Postsecondary Education and Economics Research Center.

But according to new research from the center—housed at American University’s School of Public Affairs in partnership with George Washington University—many students still do not complete their program within six years.

Looking at administrative data from Texas, researchers found that only 62 percent of students who entered a graduate program between 2003–04 and 2012–13 earned a degree in six years or less. Focusing on this period allowed the researchers to measure graduation rates before COVID disrupted enrollment and completion patterns.

The good news is that completion rates have improved over time: While 58 percent of students who started a graduate program in Texas in 2003–04 graduated within six years, the number jumped to 68 percent for the 2012–13 cohort—a faster increase than the growth in undergraduate completion rates over a similar period.

Jeff Denning, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and co-author of the report, said Texas’s graduate completion patterns are broadly similar to national trends.

He added that the rates can be read in two ways: as a failure when students take on debt but don’t finish their degree in a timely manner, or as a sign that some realize partway through that the program isn’t right for them.

“You can have both of those interpretations, but what comes to mind for me is that this number is not crazy different from the number for undergraduate graduation rates,” Denning said, noting that the six-year graduation rate for undergraduates was 67 percent in 2016.

Studying the landscape: Beyond completion, the report also examined the financial burden of graduate programs. Students who finish a graduate program typically take on more student loan debt than those who don’t earn a degree, though in some fields, noncompleters accumulate substantial debt as well.

For undergraduates, noncompletion is linked to poorer loan repayment outcomes, but the report said far less is known about graduate noncompleters—even though borrowers who attended graduate school hold nearly half of all outstanding student loan debt.

“We know that people with comparatively low student loan balances are actually more likely to be delinquent,” Denning said. “One explanation is that borrowers who didn’t complete their programs may have less debt but also miss out on the full value of a degree, which can make repayment more difficult.”

Graduate program completion rates also vary widely by field of study. Law programs have some of the highest outcomes, with 81 percent of students earning a degree within six years, while education programs fall on the lower end, with just 53 percent completing.

The type of institution a student attends is also a strong predictor of whether they finish. In Texas, flagship public universities post the highest six-year graduation rates, with an average of 72 percent of graduate students completing their programs.

Minding the gap: For undergraduate education, the report said, “policymakers have largely shifted their focus from college access to college completion,” spurring efforts by states and institutions to raise graduation rates.

Graduate student noncompletion has not received the same attention, in part because of the “lack of systematic national data on graduate program completion rates.” While colleges are required to report graduation rates for undergraduates to the federal government—and often to state governments—no similar reporting is required for graduate students, the report found.

Denning said that requiring graduate programs to report completion and debt outcomes, as undergraduate programs do, could change both institutional behavior and student decision-making about whether to enroll.

“It could affect some students’ decisions, for sure,” Denning said. “If policymakers or institutions decide to tie funding to graduation rates, then you could imagine that changes how programs operate and how students respond to them.”

In addition to reporting graduation rates, Denning said more data and research are needed to understand how graduate enrollment translates into broader student success outcomes.

“Graduate school is in the place that undergraduates were 15 or 20 years ago,” Denning said. “Now we want to think about the success of these students—not just graduation, but also earnings and debt repayment.”

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