Four-year and six-year completion rates varied widely by college, with gaps between colleges of up to 27 percentage points in four-year rates hidden by similar six-year rates¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associationalr2·q3
Currency · newest study 2023 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · recheck by 2028: baselines and conditions change
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
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q3 i? Colleges with nearly identical six-year rates showed very different four-year rates (College C 44% vs. College D 71%), and colleges with similar four-year rates showed six-year rates differing by almost 40 percentage points (College A 26% vs. College B 65%). → Nagaoka 2023
Evidence¶
Nagaoka 2023¶
Nagaoka, J., Mahaffie, S., Usher, A., & Arneson, A. (2023). The four years fallacy: Four-year vs. six-year bachelor's degree completion rates. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/the-four-years-fallacy
q3 · i? · associational · r2
Analysis of the 41 colleges most commonly attended by 2012–14 CPS immediate enrollees (25,847 students), plotted in Figure 3. The report contrasts College C and College D, whose four-year rates differ by "a difference of 27 percentage points" despite similar six-year rates above 80%. No effect size is printed.
"College C has a four-year completion rate of 44% and College D has a four-year completion rate of 71%—a difference of 27 percentage points that would not be reflected on most college search tools for students considering both colleges."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- CPS four-year completion rates rose 7 percentage points over ten years while enrollees nearly doubled, but remained far below six-year rates — related
- Across nearly all CPS high schools, six-year completion rates exceeded four-year rates, including at selective enrollment high schools where gaps reached 30 percentage points — related
- Four- versus six-year completion gaps of 15–25 percentage points appeared across academic and demographic groups, with Black young men at 13% four-year and 31% six-year completion — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
college-level-four-six-year-rate-divergence |
title |
Four-year and six-year completion rates varied widely by college, with gaps between colleges of up to 27 percentage points in four-year rates hidden by similar six-year rates |
description |
Four-year and six-year completion rates varied widely by college, with gaps between colleges of up to 27 percentage points in four-year rates hidden by similar six-year rates |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2023 |
recheck_by |
2028 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-09 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — nagaoka-2023 |
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