The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center has released new data regarding how long it took 2024–2025 undergraduate award recipients to complete their program. The report includes information on those who earned either their first-ever undergraduate award (including bachelor’s degrees, associate degrees, or undergraduate certificates), as well as those who earned their bachelor’s degree after earning a prior undergraduate award.
Among the 2.33 million students who earned their first-ever undergraduate award in 2024–2025, the median time to degree was 3.7 years for bachelor’s degrees, 3.0 years for associate degrees, and 2.3 years for certificates. Among racial groups, Black students had the highest (or tied for the highest) median time to degree across the three awards: 4.3 years for bachelor’s degrees, 4.5 years for associate degrees, and 3.7 years for certificates.
For Black students who earned their bachelor’s degree in 2024–2025, 38.7 percent took 4 years to do so, while 25.1 percent took 7 or more years to do so. Among White bachelor’s degree recipients in 2024–2025, the majority (55.1 percent) completed their degree in 4 years, and only 11.7 percent took 7 or more years to do so.
The data also includes information on the students’ stopout patterns (i.e. students who took a break midway through their degree program). About two-thirds of Black students who earned their bachelor’s degree in 2024–2025 had no stopouts, while a third had at least one stopout. Around three-quarters of both White and Hispanic students had no stopouts, and over eight-in-ten in Asian students had no stopouts.
Black students at HBCUs were less likely than Black students at other institutions to stop out. Nearly eight-in-ten Black students who earned their bachelor’s degree at an HBCU in 2024–2025 had no stopouts. Black students who earned associate degrees or certificates at HBCUs in 2024–2025 were also less likely to stop out than those attending other institutions (56.0 percent versus 43.0 percent for associate degree recipients and 49.5 percent versus 42.6 percent for certificate-recipients).
