Region at a Glance
Graduation Rates and College Participation By Richard Greenough
Studies conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Center for Education Statistics reveal that many students struggle to graduate on time and that relatively few continue on to higher education. The lower chart, for example, shows that in many states a quarter of all ninth-graders do not graduate on time. The upper chart shows that in most Northwest states fewer than eight percent of high school graduates goes on to complete a bachelor’s degree within the following six
years. 
College Participation by 18- to 24-Year-Olds in the Northwest and the Nation, 2006
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2006, Series B15001
Average Freshman Graduation Rate of Public High School Students, for Selected States and for the Nation: School Year 2003–2004 (Northwest states in blue)
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, “Dropout Rates in the United States: 2005,” June 2007 (Publication Number NCES 2007-059)
According to the NCES, the averaged freshman graduation estimates the “proportion of public high school freshmen who graduate with a regular diploma four years after starting the ninth grade.”