High School Graduation*
About
Percentage of ninth-grade cohort that graduates in four years. The 2023 County Health Rankings used data from 2019-2020 for this measure.
Education is an important predictor of health. Completing more education is associated with being less likely to smoke and more likely to exercise, as well as better physical health and self-reported health.1-3 Adults that are more educated are more often employed and tend to earn more than their less educated counterparts.3 A one-point increase in high school GPA raises annual earnings in adulthood by about 12% in males and nearly 14% in females.4
Graduating with a high school diploma is associated with health benefits when compared to those that earn a Graduate Equivalency Diploma (GED), where GED earners are about twice as likely to have worse self-reported health and physical limitations.2
It is important to note, as rates of high school and college completion are increasing, race/ethnicity gaps in educational attainment over the past 20 years have remained. In 2005, white recent high school graduates were 11 percentage points more likely to enroll in college than their Black and Hispanic peers. In 2015, these gaps had decreased to 8 percentage points for Black and 5 percentage points for Hispanic students.3
Data and methods
Data Source
EDFacts
Beginning with the 2010-2011 school-year, states have been required to submit cohort graduation rates to the federal government. These data have been made available to the public on EDFacts. Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rates at the Local Education Agency (school district) level from EDFacts data were used for all states except Hawaii, where school level data were used.
Website to download data
For more detailed methodological information
Key Measure Methods
High School Graduation is a percentage
High School Graduation is the percentage of the ninth-grade cohort that graduates from high school in four years.
The method for calculating High School Graduation has changed
Please note this measure was modified in the 2011, 2012, 2014, 2019, 2020, and 2021 Rankings. In 2019, the priority was to use state-specific data for states where there were many missing counties in the national dataset. Estimates from this year are from the national data source alone and should be compared with caution to previous years. When comparing across years, ensure that the source remained the same.
Measure limitations
High School Graduation has several limitations. First, there are differences across states and even schools in determining whether a student is a transfer or a dropout, and this can substantially affect graduation rates because dropouts are still included in a graduation cohort, but transfers are not.5 Second, there are different rules applied to certain student groups (e.g., incarcerated students, special needs students) at some schools; for instance, they may be excluded from the cohort, included in the cohort but given longer to graduate, or included in the cohort with no special considerations. Third, some states include online schools, but students do not necessarily reside in the same county as the online school’s mailing address, so there are problems with assigning an online school to a specific county. Finally, schools which have a large proportion of their cohort as transfer students generally have a disadvantage in terms of graduation rates, as these students may be lacking requirements for their new school.5
Numerator
The numerator is the number of cohort members who earned a regular high school diploma by the end of the school year.
Denominator
The denominator is the number of first-time 9th graders four years prior to graduation, plus students who transferred in, minus students who transferred out, emigrated, or died during school years.
Can This Measure Be Used to Track Progress
County Health Rankings High School Graduation data should not be used to measure progress. Local data sources are more appropriate for measuring progress given the substantial measure changes over time.
Finding More Data
Disaggregation means breaking data down into smaller, meaningful subgroups. Disaggregated data are often broken down by characteristics of people or where they live. Disaggregated data can reveal inequalities that are otherwise hidden. These data can be disaggregated by:
- Race
- Subcounty Area
This data is available from EDFacts and can be stratified by school district, race, or poverty status where the population is big enough.
Most states maintain extensive websites of graduation rates. You can find links to these reports in State-Specific Data Sources.
References
1 Heckman JJ, Humphries JE, Veramendi G, Urzua SS. Education, health and wages. National Bureau of Economic Research. 2014: Working Paper No. 19971.
2 Zajacova A, Everett BG. The nonequivalent health of high school equivalents. Social Sciences Quarterly. 2014; 95:221-238.
3 Ma J, Pender M, Welch M. Education pays 2016. The College Board. 2016.
4 French MT, Homer JF, Popovici I, Robins PK. What you do in high school matters: High school GPA, educational attainment, and labor market earnings as a young adult. Eastern Economic Journal. 2015; 41:370-386.
5 Murnane, RL. U.S. high school graduation rates: Patterns and explanations. Nat Bur Econ Research. 2013: Working Paper No. 18701.