 ANALYSIS: Graduation Rates Fall at One-Third of 4-Year Colleges 
 
 SORTABLE TABLES: Graduation Rates Over Time, by Type of Institution: 
 
 Public Research | Private Research | Public Master's | Private Master's | Private Baccalaureate Arts & Sciences 
 
 We compare here the graduation rates at four-year colleges for the six years ending in 2008 with the rates for the six years ending in 2003. In some cases, those students may represent a small minority of all students enrolled at the institution. Among public research universities, the University of Virginia had the highest graduation rate in 2008 at 93 percent, followed by the College of William and Mary and the University of California-Berkeley. A college's graduation rate sometimes spikes up or down in a particular year. To account for such fluctuations, The Chronicle also averaged the graduation rates for 2002 and 2003 and compared those sums with the averages of the 2007 and 2008 rates.
– Graduation rates at US institutions of higher learning have dropped 33% since 2002, a Chronicle of Higher Education study finds, and the recession may be to blame. The Huffington Post lists the 12 colleges with the lowest graduation rates: Golden Gate University, San Francisco: 10% Alliant International University, San Diego: 11% Idaho State University, Pocatello: 16% University of Arkansas, Little Rock: 21% University of New Orleans, New Orleans: 22% Cleveland State University, Cleveland: 26% Texas A&M, Kingsville: 27% University of Alaska, Fairbanks: 27% University of Texas, El Paso: 31% Indiana University—Purdue University, Indianapolis: 32% Morgan State University, Baltimore: 32% University of Massachusetts, Boston: 33% See the colleges with the highest graduation rates.