The US higher education system is increasingly failing to deliver on its promise of fostering economic mobility and equity, as enrollment slows, student debt surges, and the sector’s reputation declines. Senior partner Jonathan Law and colleagues find that higher education could graduate ten million more students than currently projected over the next 20 years by taking steps such as narrowing the large gap in completion rates between high- and low-performing two-year and four-year institutions.
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A pair of area graphs show student course completion rates for 4-year and 2-year institutions. Each graph is split into quartiles. The disparity between top-quartile and bottom-quartile student average completion rates in 4-year institutions is 49 percentage points, or from 79 to 30% completion. The disparity between top-quartile and bottom-quartile student average completion rates in 2-year institutions is 47 percentage points, or from 67 to 20% completion.
Note: Each of the 6,400 institutions in the United States is represented as a single bar.
Footnote 1: Students who transferred to a 4-year school before completing an associate’s degree. Footnote 2: Defined as being eligible for a Pell Grant.
Source: Carnegie Foundation; Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System
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To read the report, “Fulfilling the potential of US higher education,” April 17, 2023.