The Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended in 2008, requires disclosure of student retention and graduation rates. Pursuant to the Student Right-to-Know Act, retention and graduation rate reports provided below are disaggregated numerous ways including by gender, racial and ethnic subgroups, recipients of Federal Pell grants, recipients of a subsidized Direct Stafford Loan who did not receive a Pell grant; and students who did not receive either a Pell Grant or a subsidized Stafford Loan.
The following reports are broken out by gender and ethnicity (new race/ethnicity definitions for IPEDS begin with 2010 cohort):
First Time, Full-Time, Bachelor's Degree Seeking Students
First Time, Part-Time, Bachelor's Degree Seeking Students
The following report shows the six-year graduation rates for first-time, full-time degree seeking students who (1) received a Federal Pell Grant; (2) received a subsidized Stafford Loan, but did not receive a Pell Grant; and (3) neither received a Pell Grant nor a subsidized Stafford Loan.
In compliance with the GI Bill Consumer Awareness Act of 2012, the following report shows the retention and six-year graduation rates for degree-seeking students disaggregated by military affiliate and non-affiliate status. Military affiliates include veterans, active military, and dependent spouses and children.
The University of South Carolina Aiken also disaggregates retention, progression, and graduation rates by the first-generation and non-first-generation status of students entering the institution. A first-generation student is one whose parents did not enroll in postsecondary education.
The University of South Carolina also calculates and reports an 8-year outcomes metric that documents the status of students eight years after entering the institution. The metric includes a report of the enrollment and completion status of all students who started throughout the year from July 1st through June 30th, regardless of when they entered and regardless of whether they are first-time students, transfer students, full-time students, or part-time students.
Eight Year Outcomes Reports