Women Hold an Edge in College Graduation Rates

The U.S. Department of Education has issued preliminary data on graduation rates for the cohort of students who entered college in 2005 and earned their degrees within six years.

The data shows that at four-year public institutions, the graduation rate for women was 56.4 percent. This was 4.8 percentage points higher than the rate for men. At private nonprofit institutions, the graduation rate for women was 66.2 percent, 4.5 percentage points higher than the rate for men.

If we break down the data by race/ethnic group, we find that, on average, White women had a graduation rate that was 4.6 percentage points higher than the rate for white men. Black and African American women had an average graduation rate that was 8.7 percent higher than the rate for Black men. For Hispanics the average graduation rate for women was 5.6 percentage points higher than the rate for men.