Students’ chances of tossing their graduation caps on time can vary widely by the US state where they attend high school.
In Alaska, the rate of students who graduate from high school in four years is 79.87%, compared to Kentucky’s 93.60%.
While graduation rates are one way to measure academic achievement and are used by local and state governments to track educational progress, they are complex metrics.
For starters, diploma requirements vary from state to state, meaning students in different states face different course and testing requirements to earn a diploma, influencing the rigor of education demonstrated by a high school degree.
Still, the diploma matters.
Across the nation, higher levels of education are almost always associated with higher earnings, and high school degrees are no different. On average, US adults aged 25 or over with a high school degree earn $8,216 more a year than those without one, according to Census data.
Using data from state education agencies and public data portals across all 50 states, Business Insider compiled a list of the most up-to-date high school graduation rates from each.
The US Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics regularly publishes an official list of all states’ high school graduation rates, but because of the adjustment process used for its calculations, the released data often lags by a couple of years. The most recent data, released in 2024, covers the 2021-2022 school year.