Colorado graduation rate reaches record high, but minority groups still struggle to catch up
Ben Roof/For the Vail Daily
The Colorado Department of Education’s 2024 graduation and dropout data show , though some student groups are struggling to catch up to the state average.
Colorado public schools reported a four-year graduation rate of 84.2% in 2024 鈥� a 1.1 percentage point increase from 2023 and the state’s highest graduation rate in more than a decade.
More than half of school districts , with several Western Slope districts surpassing 90%.
Aspen School District and South Routt RE 3 recorded some of the highest graduation rates in the state at 97.1% and 98%, respectively. Summit, Gunnison Watershed, Meeker, Rangely, Hayden, Steamboat Springs, South Routt and Ouray R-1 districts all recorded graduation rates of 90% or greater.
Students can take up to seven years to graduate high school in Colorado. Although five- and six-year graduation rates saw improvements last year, seven-year rates 鈥� students who were juniors when the pandemic began 鈥� remain comparatively lower.
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“This likely reflects the unique challenges that group has faced due to the disruptions of school during the pandemic,” Colorado Education Commissioner Susana C贸rdova said during a presentation to the media.
Fewer Colorado students are dropping out of school
The state’s dropout rate saw a decline during the last academic school year, marking a continued recovery from .
Dropout rates for students in grades 7-12 reached 1.9% in 2024 鈥� 0.2 percentage points lower compared to 2023 and 0.3 points lower than the pandemic high of 2.2% reached in 2022.
Roughly 700 fewer students dropped out in 2024, suggesting the state is on track to return to its historic low dropout rate of 1.8%, which was last achieved in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years.
Many of the schools reporting improved dropout rates belong to rural districts, including Englewood, Cripple Creek and Center school districts.
“It’s worth noting the impressive efforts of many districts, especially rural districts, that have lower-than-average dropout rates,” C贸rdova said. “More than 130 school districts reported 10 or fewer dropouts, which shows the district success in keeping students on track and engaged.”
Districts struggle to close gaps for minority students
Even with improvements in both rates, however, significant disproportionalities persist across student groups 鈥� particularly students of color.
For some students of color, students experiencing homelessness, students from migrant families, students with disabilities, multilingual learners, students in foster care and students who are economically disadvantaged, four-year graduation rates lag behind the statewide graduation rate of 84.2%, according to a department news release.
This doesn’t mean the graduation rates for these students got worse over the year, however. With the exception of Black and Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students, the majority of students of color saw improved graduation rates.
Students who identified as American Indian/Alaskan Native, Hispanic and multiracial all saw graduation rate increases above the statewide increase of 1.1%, despite their overall rates still falling below the state average and those of their white peers.
Students experiencing homelessness and students in foster care showed the most improvement, with graduation rate increases of 3.6% and 4.2%, respectively. Still, rates for those student groups are much lower 鈥� just over 40% of students in foster care graduated in 2024.
Male students also lagged behind the statewide graduation rate in 2024. The graduation rate for females is more than 2 percentage points higher than the state average of 84.2%, while the rate for males is 81.8%.
C贸rdova said the state has “historically had a gap between our boys and our girls.” While she said the department doesn’t have a way to confirm why this may be happening in Colorado, national trends point to higher rates of females attending college than males. Males tend to have higher engagement in school when the learning material is work-based.
“One of the things that we’ve learned about our male students is that many times they leave high school to go and work. They feel an obligation to support their families,” Greeley-Evans School District Superintendent Deirdre Pilch said during the presentation. “To counteract that 鈥� we moved one of our alternative schools to four days a week, so that students have a full Friday, Saturday and Sunday to go to work.”
Similar to the disproportionality in statewide graduation rates, dropout rates for most students of color and earlier-identified student groups are higher than the state average, according to the Colorado Department of Education.
Students in foster care, multilingual learners, students from migrant families, students experiencing homelessness and students identified as Hawaiian/Pacific Islander drop out at more than twice the statewide rate, despite most seeing greater improvement compared with the state average. Students from migrant families showed the highest dropout rate at 4.7%.
Students who are identified as Hispanic or American Indian/Alaskan Native, both with rates slightly over 3%, are more than three times as likely as white students to drop out. The lowest dropout rate came from Asian students at 0.7% 鈥� unchanged from 2023.
To see and data by school district, visit the Colorado Department of Education website at CDE.State.co.us.
