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Student Success: Measures of Student Success

Measures of Student Success

Adult undergraduate students enroll at institutions like Golden Gate University for a variety of reasons. Personal edification, serving as a role model for other family members, improving career options and career advancement are only a few of the reasons. In the end, there is a single goal -- to earn a Bachelor's degree. Along the journey to completing an undergraduate degree program students can often be derailed by career demands, family obligations, limited financial resources, and life in general. The higher education experience can also get in the way of a student's success -- lack of support in academic advising and navigating university policies, a poor learning experience or a lack of customer service can also interfere with reaching a graduation goal.

With a firm commitment to providing appropriate support for academic and administrative guidance while delivering a challenging, quality learning experience, the faculty and staff of Undergraduate Programs pay close attention to a number of indicators that point to student success. Retention rates: the percentage of students who start a degree program and who consistently enroll over time to reach degree attainment, and graduation rates: the number of students who start and earn their degree as well as how long it takes to reach graduation, are important factors to determine how well we are serving our students.

Understanding Retention & Graduation Rates

The student profile for those seeking a bachelor's degree at Golden Gate University is very different from a traditional, full-time, residential student profile we typically think of when considering retention and graduation rates. The Undergraduate Programs Student Profile consists of students who tend to enroll part-time while working more than 30 hours per week and managing a family. On average, our students transfer in 45 to 51 units of transfer credit but students can enroll at GGU with zero college units earned (with work experience) or as many as 93 units completed. All of these factors impact the enrollment patterns of our students including persistence in a program and time to graduation. There is very little national data to benchmark a "good" retention and graduation rate for this population, but we strive to improve our historical retention and graduation rates while continuing to research performance of like programs nationwide to benchmark the institution's performance.

The data will be updated each term to reflect the progress made by each cohort.

Questions or concerns with the data provided should be sent to Nate Hinerman, PhD., Dean of Undergraduate Programs.



Bachelor of Arts in Management & Bachelor of Science in Business
Graduated within...
Stopped classes after...
3 Years
5 Years
8 Years
9 Years
academic year(s) started 09-10, 10-11 07-08, 08-09 05-06, 06-07 05-06
  35% 45% 46% 46%
Asian 41% 46% 22% --
Black 19% 38% 45%  --
Hispanic 25% 29% 35%  --
White 40% 49% 50%  --
Other 48% 46% 49%  --
Unknown 35% 45% 56%  --
Female 37% 47% 48%  --
Male 33% 43% 43%  --