High School Graduation Rates by State 2025
High school graduation is one of the first and most important milestones in a young man or woman’s life. Unfortunately, not everyone makes it to this momentous day. There are several reasons why a person wouldn’t graduate – from having a less-than-ideal home life, working to help support the family, or even because they are homeless. Graduating high school is the first step to attaining higher educational degrees. Fortunately, though, the United States Department of Education announced that the graduation rate nationwide had hit an all-time high. According to the department’s data, 85% of students earned a diploma at the end of the 2017-2018 school year.
When broken down by state, Iowa and New Jersey have the highest graduation rate in the country at 91% each. Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin all follow with 90%.
It’s very interesting to look at the graduation rates of various schools across the country because there are always different variables at play. First and foremost, the most available statistics regarding graduation rates in the nation only take public schools into consideration. It is more difficult to access information regarding high school graduation rates for students who attend private institutions because the government does not run them.
But despite information not being easily accessible, it is a well-known fact that private schools have higher graduation rates than public schools. Class sizes tend to be much smaller in private schools because the school admissions councils can control how many students are enrolled in the school. Public schools, on the other hand, cannot turn students away for any reason, so they have to find ways to accommodate all the students in the respective school zones.
Many external factors also influence the likelihood that students will graduate from high school. For example, the high school graduation rates of students who come from low-income backgrounds are different from students with disabilities’ graduation rates. We’ll start with a definitive list of graduation rates in general for the public schools in each of the fifty states for perspective’s sake. Then, you can view the data for the high school graduation rates of low-income children as well as high schoolers with disabilities, both of which put these school children at a disadvantage.
State | State | High School or Higher |
|---|---|---|
| Montana | Montana | 94.6% |
| Maine | Maine | 94.5% |
| Vermont | Vermont | 94.5% |
| New Hampshire | New Hampshire | 94.1% |
| Wyoming | Wyoming | 94.1% |
| Minnesota | Minnesota | 93.9% |
| North Dakota | North Dakota | 93.8% |
| Alaska | Alaska | 93.5% |
| Wisconsin | Wisconsin | 93.4% |
| Utah | Utah | 93.3% |
Graduation Rates in U.S. Public High Schools for the School Year 2017-2018, in Percentages
By the end of the 2018 school year, the average U.S. graduation rate was about 85%, and the individual states contributed to this total in the following ways. Only fifteen states and one federal district have at least one school with a 100% graduation rate. The District of Columbia has one school from which 100% of the student body graduates and the fifteen states with a 100% graduation rate in 2019 are:
- Alaska (5 schools)
- Arizona (26 schools)
- Arkansas (13 schools)
- California (55 schools)
- Colorado (14 schools)
- Connecticut (5 schools)
- Florida (40 schools)
- Georgia (11 schools)
- Idaho (12 schools)
- Illinois (20 schools)
- Indiana (14 schools)
- Iowa (42 schools)
- Kansas (3 schools)
- Kentucky (10 schools)
- Louisiana (13 schools)
- Maine (1 school)
