Trends in High School Dropout and Completion Rates in the United States: 1972–2008

NCES 2011-012 December 2010

Table 12. Averaged freshman graduation rate of public high school students, by state: School year 2007–08

State	Averaged freshman graduation rate (percent)	Regular diplomas, school year 2007–08	Estimated first-time 9th-graders, school year 2004–051	Grade 10 membership, school year 2005–06	Grade 9 membership, school year 2004–05	Grade 8 membership, school year 2003–04
Reporting states2,3	74.9	2,964,371	3,958,987	3,841,810	4,247,085	3,788,070
Alabama	69.0	41,346	59,954	55,630	64,569	59,663
Alaska	69.1	7,855	11,370	11,035	11,934	11,140
Arizona	70.7	61,667	87,280	92,763	92,275	76,801
Arkansas	76.4	28,725	37,612	37,390	38,359	37,087
California	71.2	374,561	526,251	519,879	554,174	504,701
Colorado	75.4	46,082	61,102	59,962	64,446	58,897
Connecticut	82.2	38,419	46,766	45,266	49,177	45,854
Delaware	72.1	7,388	10,250	9,279	11,249	10,222
District of Columbia	56.0	3,352	5,986	5,775	6,700	5,484
Florida	66.9	149,046	222,755	212,560	250,263	205,443
Georgia	65.4	83,505	127,610	120,058	142,079	120,694
Hawaii	76.0	11,613	15,278	14,292	16,991	14,549
Idaho	80.1	16,567	20,681	20,609	21,344	20,091
Illinois	80.4	135,143	168,121	165,513	178,280	160,570
Indiana	74.1	61,901	83,516	81,090	87,829	81,629
Iowa	86.4	34,573	40,022	40,151	41,196	38,719
Kansas	79.1	30,737	38,863	38,252	40,557	37,781
Kentucky	74.4	39,339	52,910	50,700	57,419	50,611
Louisiana	63.5	34,401	54,162	43,292	59,182	60,013
Maine3	79.1	14,350	16,672	15,926	16,766	17,323
Maryland	80.4	59,171	73,556	70,031	81,270	69,368
Massachusetts	81.5	65,197	79,984	76,688	84,628	78,635
Michigan	76.3	115,183	150,960	146,291	163,124	143,465
Minnesota	86.4	60,409	69,904	71,051	70,751	67,909
Mississippi	63.9	24,795	38,812	35,868	41,261	39,306
Missouri	82.4	61,717	74,922	73,142	78,748	72,876
Montana	82.0	10,396	12,673	12,344	13,238	12,438
Nebraska	83.8	20,035	23,906	23,713	25,214	22,792
Nevada	51.3	17,149	33,403	32,665	36,105	31,440
New Hampshire	83.4	14,982	17,974	17,529	18,644	17,750
New Jersey	84.6	94,994	112,326	111,155	116,702	109,120
New Mexico	66.8	18,264	27,355	26,075	30,134	25,857
New York	70.8	176,310	248,854	243,322	273,438	229,801
North Carolina	72.8	83,307	114,447	108,210	126,414	108,717
North Dakota	83.8	6,999	8,351	8,261	8,547	8,245
Ohio	79.0	120,758	152,906	145,999	165,656	147,064
Oklahoma	78.0	37,630	48,270	46,834	50,404	47,572
Oregon	76.7	34,949	45,549	44,921	46,785	44,941
Pennsylvania	82.7	130,298	157,530	157,058	164,389	151,144
Rhode Island	76.4	10,347	13,539	13,007	14,591	13,018
South Carolina	—	—	56,742	51,277	65,564	53,384
South Dakota	84.4	8,582	10,168	10,046	10,377	10,082
Tennessee	74.9	57,486	76,789	74,717	82,168	73,481
Texas	73.1	252,121	344,696	323,524	386,182	324,381
Utah	74.3	28,167	37,894	38,319	38,069	37,295
Vermont	89.3	7,392	8,275	8,152	8,552	8,121
Virginia	77.0	77,369	100,512	96,546	109,375	95,615
Washington	71.9	61,625	85,674	84,945	89,802	82,274
West Virginia	77.3	17,489	22,623	21,415	24,199	22,256
Wisconsin	89.6	65,183	72,748	73,409	76,173	68,663
Wyoming	76.0	5,494	7,226	7,150	7,355	7,173
— Not available. 1 First-time 9th-graders were estimated as the average of student membership in grades 8, 9, and 10 in 3 consecutive years. 2 U.S. totals include any of the 50 states and the District of Columbia that reported all data elements. 3 Maine reported 1,161 diplomas that were awarded to students attending private high schools that received a majority of their funding from public sources. These 1,161 diplomas were included in Maine and the reporting states counts but were not included in the averaged freshman graduation rate (AFGR) calculations for the state and for the reporting states totals. The diploma counts used to calculate the AFGR for Maine and for the United States were 13,189 and 2,964,125, respectively. NOTE: The averaged freshman graduation rate (AFGR) is an estimate of the percentage of an entering freshman class graduating in 4 years. For 2007–08, it equals the total number of diploma recipients in 2007–08 divided by the average membership of the 8th-grade class in 2003–04, the 9th-grade class in 2004–05, and the 10th-grade class in 2005–06. Ungraded students were allocated to individual grades proportionally to the reported enrollments by grade. The sum of the estimated first-time 9th-graders is not equal to the total because the sum of averages is not equal to the average of sums. SOURCE: Stillwell, R. (2010). Public School Graduates and Dropouts From the Common Core of Data: School Year 2007–08 (NCES 2010-341), table 1.