Most Fail to Graduate from For-Profit Schools

Another damning report about for-profit universities. This one, from the National Center for Education Statistics, is a longitudinal study measuring how many students earned a degree within six years of starting a degree program at a post-secondary institution. The study examines the earned degrees in 2009 of students who entered school in 2004. Among students in 2004 who entered a degree program at a four-year institution, 51.5 percent of those who attended a public university had a bachelor's degree from that institution six years later. Among those who attended a private, non-profit university, the completion rate was an even higher 57.0 percent. Among those who entered a for-profit school, the figure was only 13.3 percent.

Source: National Center for Education Statistics, Persistence and Attainment of 2003-04 Beginning Postsecondary Students: After Six Years