State graduation rate holds near record high at 89.2%; dropout rate steady at 8.5%

The Mississippi Department of Education reported Feb. 20 that the four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate for the most recent cohort is 89.2 percent, down two-tenths of a percentage point from 2024's 89.4 percent but above the most recent national average of 86.6 percent. The statewide dropout rate held steady at 8.5 percent.

Timothy Scott presented an 82-page report that included district-level and subgroup breakdowns. He told the board the 2025 cohort calculation follows the four-year adjusted cohort method based on students who entered ninth grade in the 2020–21 academic year and that pandemic-era waivers complicate some subgroup trends.

Scott highlighted subgroup performance: students with disabilities saw a graduation-rate decline from 70 percent to 65.2 percent year over year; MDE staff attributed some cohort differences to pandemic-era waivers that affected prior cohorts' assessment and graduation conditions. Agency staff cautioned that next year could show further movement as waiver effects fully wash out.

MDE also provided frequency-distribution tables showing the majority of districts graduate more than 80 percent of their students on time and most districts have dropout rates under 10 percent. The presentation included ranked lists of districts with the highest graduation rates and the lowest dropout rates; the top districts in the lowest-dropout table had zero dropouts during the cohort window.

Board members asked for and received basic context about subgroup trends and underlying pandemic effects; no board action was requested or taken on the data presentation.