The Student Right-to-Know Act, passed by Congress in 1990, requires institutions eligible for Title IV funding, under the Higher Education Act of 1965, to calculate completion or graduation rates of certificate- or degree-seeking, full-time students entering that institution, and to disclose these rates to current and prospective students.
The institutional statistics that are used as the “industry standard” by post-secondary higher education institutions to provide institutional or program outcomes under the Act can be found in the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).
The components commonly utilized to evaluate a college’s or university’s overall performance are graduation rate, retention rate, and time-to-completion, and are based on the percentage results of first-time, full-time degree-seeking students during the most recent available academic year.
