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How Do Student Backgrounds Impact Time To Degree?

CSU students starting as Freshmen and graduating in academic years 2020/21 - 2022/23
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Chart FAQ

What is the CSU Graduation Initiative 2025

Graduation Initiative 2025 is the California State University's initiative to increase graduation rates for all CSU students while eliminating opportunity and achievement gaps between historically underserved student groups and their counterparts. Through this initiative the CSU is ensuring that all students have the opportunity to graduate in a timely manner according to their personal goals, positively impacting their future and producing the graduates needed to power California and the nation. Read more about the Graduation Initiative here.

What is the purpose of this chart?

This chart allows you to explore how different student characteristics relate to the time it takes students to graduate. For a more nuanced discussion of how and why these factors impact a student's time-to-degree, consider visiting the "Rethinking the Gap" website.

How do I interact with this page?

When this page first loads, the bar graph shows all students who took four years or fewer to graduate. Using this filter panel, you can quickly toggle back and forth between demographic groups of interest to see how unit load patterns vary across these groups.

  • Click on "Gender," "URM Status," or "Pell Grant Status" on the right to see graduation outcomes for students in these subgroups.
  • Hover over (or on mobile devices, click on) any bar or path in the chart to see the percentage of students in that selected sub-group or taking that particular path.

What are the definitions for Underrepresented Minority (URM) and Pell?

  • Underrepresented Minority (URM) and Non-Underrepresented Minority (Non-URM): URM students are students who indicated that they identify as Black/African-American, American Indian, or Hispanic/Latino when they applied to the CSU. Students who identify as any other ethnicity or race (including mixed-race) are categorized as non-URM. While there are other valid ways to aggregate URM and Non-URM groups, we use this method to maintain consistency with the Federal Government's IPEDS data reporting practices. This has the advantage of making our data comparable to other institutions across the U.S. which must report data using the same definitions.
  • Pell and Not Pell: Pell students are defined as students who received a Federal Pell Grant in their first term of enrollment. All other students are treated as Not Pell. Pell Grant status is used as a proxy for the economic status of the students and their families. Pell Grants are awarded based, in part, on family income and resources. While using this marker as an indicator of economic status is not perfect (for example, students failing to meet the threshold for receiving a Pell Grant by a small amount are grouped with students whose families have much larger incomes and resources) it provides a consistent measure that can be compared to other institutions across the U.S.

Where does this data come from?

The data used to create this chart was taken from data originally sent by each campus' Institutional Research department to the Chancellor's Office in order to meet the campus' Federal and State data reporting requirements. These data are finalized as of the "census date" for the campuses' fall term. For semester campuses, the census date is the 20th day of actual instruction after the fall-term starts, or at the end of 4 weeks of instruction. For campuses using the quarter system, the census date is the 15th day of instruction of the fall term, or at the end of 3 weeks of actual instruction.

Where can I get more information on CSU enrollments and graduation rates?

You can visit the CSU Institutional Research Dashboards, developed and maintained by the CSU Office of the Chancellor's Institutional Research and Analyses department.

What other CSU websites should I visit to learn about student success?

For information on preparing for success in college consider visiting:

For information on paying for college, consider visiting:

For information on student enrollment and success at the CSU consider visiting: