Students Attending Career Education Colleges and Universities Members Graduate at a 59% Rate

Career Education Colleges and Universities announced today that its member institutions have achieved a 59% graduation rate! In making the announcement, CECU’s president Steve Gunderson shared that over 500 campuses produced over 52,346 graduations in 2018. “Outcomes matter,” he said. “When Members of Congress referenced a GAO Report stating that our sector had only a 22% graduation rate, I knew they were wrong.  We verified our member school’s graduation rates with U.S. Department of Education data.”

Career education in America has experienced dramatic changes over the past ten years, with significant growth during the recession, followed by a period of reduced enrollment. Throughout the past decade, members of Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU) have remained focused and committed to working with students to provide them with real education, real opportunities, and real outcomes. As a result, CECU members have a graduation rate of 59%, far exceeding institutions that serve similar student demographics. This includes others in the sector, as well as public two-year colleges.

The reason for this success is CECU members’ dedicated focus to on-site or hybrid education, versus online-only classes. Member schools also create and maintain targeted career education programs, as opposed to liberal arts programs. Students have found career success because of the close relationships their schools maintain with employers, ensuring that the students are receiving career-relevant education –so they can join the workforce immediately after graduation.”
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“For over a decade, opponents for career education colleges and universities have cherry picked data and manipulated research to distort outcomes in higher education, and advance ideological wars against the sector,” Gunderson said. Outcomes should matter – for every student, every program and every school. Public policy should be determined by performance of each school and program, not be wholesale attacks on an entire sector.  These numbers prove that our members reflect the commitment to academic excellence leading to successful outcomes sought by policy makers of both parties.”

“As an organization, we support public policy that is fairly applied across the board and contains guardrails to limit access to federal funds those who do not meet minimum outcome standards – regardless of the school or program,” Gunderson concluded.