Recent high school graduates who enroll in college increasingly are staying for a second year, according to a new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
The 2026 High School Benchmarks report looks at enrollment, persistence and completion trends among high school graduates. The research shows steady rates in overall college enrollment of recent high school graduates and an uptick in persistence, particularly for graduates of high-poverty schools.
Immediate enrollment rates hold steady
In terms of immediate enrollment – meaning enrollment in college by the first fall after graduation – rates were steady between the 2024 and 2025 high school graduating classes – about 51% for students from high-poverty schools and slightly more than 71% for those from low-poverty schools.
Looking more closely, immediate enrollment rates also held steady for those enrolling at a two-year college. More 2025 graduates from high-poverty high schools enrolled at two-year colleges (22.3%) than those from low-poverty high schools (13.8%).
In that same 2025 graduating class, 28.9% of high-poverty high school graduates and 60.1% of low-poverty high school graduates enrolled at a four-year college.
Persistence ticks up
To measure persistence trends, the report looks at the 2022 and 2023 graduating classes.
While first-year to second-year persistence rates increased across all high school characteristics, the largest increase came from 2023 graduates of high-poverty high schools, up 1.7 percentage points to 76%.
Graduates of low-poverty high schools saw a smaller increase from 2022 to 2023: 1.2 percentage points, reaching 90.6%. But that number is still 14.6 percentage points higher than the persistence rates for graduates of high-poverty schools.
For those who enrolled at a two-year college, 66.6% of 2023 high-poverty high school graduates persisted into their second year, 1.4 percentage points higher than the persistence rate for 2022 graduates.
And 76.7% of 2023 low-poverty high school graduates who enrolled at a two-year college persisted, up from 75.6% for 2022 graduates.
Majors of choice
A look at college majors reveals that, for those attending two-year institutions, the top majors for 2025 high school graduates are liberal arts and sciences, general studies and humanities. According to the report, 22.1% of high-poverty school and 33.8% of low-poverty school graduates have taken up these fields of study.
Beyond that, 11.3% of graduates from high-poverty schools and 7.8% of graduates from low-poverty schools are studying health professions/clinical sciences. Business is the major of choice for 8.4% of high-poverty and 11.6% of low-poverty school graduates.
The report also reveals that income and poverty characteristics drive the largest differences in the share of STEM completers – more so than urbanicity or minority status. For example, only 7.5% of 2019 high-poverty school graduates completed a STEM major within six years of high school graduation. Meanwhile, that rate was 22.3% for 2019 graduates of low-poverty high schools.
