The Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication encourages us to make student graduation and retention rates available on our website in order to provide easy access to this important information. Marquette University’s Office of Institutional Research and Analysis publishes this information annually, and the figures below are the most up-to-date at this time.

The retention rate reported below is a calculation that compares the number of freshmen in the Diederich College of Communication who enter in a given fall against the number of students in the college who are retained the following fall. The rate for the last five years for freshmen in the Diederich College is very high. High retention rates are an indicator of student satisfaction with an institution or program, and the data below show the retention rates from 2009 to 2014.

Fall to Subsequent Fall Retention Rate for First-Time, Full-Time Freshmen in the Diederich College and Marquette University for 2009–2014

	2009-10	2010–11	2011–12	2012–13	2013–14
Communication	90%	90%	89%	88%	85%
Initial Cohort	184	216	205	243	178
Number Retained	166	195	182	214	152
All University	88%	90%	88%	91%	89%
Initial Cohort	1,946	1,928	2,056	1,927	1,989
Number Retained	1,722	1,731	1,809	1,748	1,763

The six-year graduation rate is another important calculation, given that high graduation rates reflect a commitment to helping students successfully complete their degrees. The year shown in each column in the chart below corresponds to the fall semester of each cohort’s freshman year, and the percentage indicates how many students completed their education at Marquette University within six years. For example, 87.3% of students who entered the Diederich College of Communication as freshmen in 2008 graduated by 2014, compared with 79.3% for Marquette University as a whole.

 

Six-Year Graduation Rate for First-Time, Full-Time freshmen in the Diederich College
and Marquette University: Fall Semester Census 2004 through 2008

	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Communication	77.2%	85.4%	81.7%	85.7%	83.7%
All University	81.0%	81.4%	80.2%	78.2%	79.3%

 

Retention and Graduation Rates on the Marquette University website
Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication website