Every US state ranked by high school graduation rate, from lowest to highest

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.

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.

The graduation rates we used in our list come from the much more frequently updated state data.

While most percentages reflect the 2024-2025 school year, a handful of states had only 2023-2024 numbers publicly available.

Those include: Connecticut, Delaware, Kansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Texas.

Most states follow the four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate formula, which measures the share of first-time ninth graders who earn a regular high school diploma within four years.

The formula adjusts the cohort of students by adding those who transfer into the school system and removing students who transfer out, emigrate, or die.

To put graduation rates into context, we also listed each state’s public school spending per pupil and median household income.

See what percentage of public high school students graduate in four years in every state, and where yours falls in the nationwide ranking.