Over 3.4 million people in the U.S. earned some type of undergraduate credential or degree in the 2024-2025 academic year, an increase of 3.2% compared to the prior year, according to a recently released report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
Undergraduate Degree Earners Report provides a demographic and education credential profile for all students who graduate with an undergraduate-level credential, encompassing undergraduate certificates and associate and bachelor’s degrees.
The report found that about 2 million students earned a bachelor’s degree as their highest award in the 2024-2025 academic year (+2.8%), while 865,400 earned an associate degree (+2.6%). The 579,400 completers who earned an undergraduate certificate (+5.7%) represented a decade high for people earning this type of credential as their highest award.
In New Jersey, 39,364 students earned a bachelor’s degree in the 2024-2025 academic year, a decline of 1.5% from the prior academic year. However, the number of students earning an associate degree at community colleges increased by 1.8% to 20,231 in 2024-2025.
The report did not break down the number of certificate completers by state, only by region. It said the number of people who earned an undergraduate certificate increased 2.9% to 20,417 at northeastern institutions during the 2024-2025 academic year. The largest percentage increase in certificate earners was in the South, where there was an 8.6% increase, bringing the number of people earning certificates from southern institutions that year to 242,756.
Nationwide, the highest number of certificates (171,221) were earned in the health profession and related clinical sciences fields, an increase of 8.6% over the prior year.
At two-year institutions, the most associate degrees were earned by liberal arts and sciences majors (316,550), which nevertheless represented a decrease of 1.1% for that major compared to the prior academic year.
For bachelor’s degrees, business management, marketing, and related support was the field that had the most graduates (380,092), an increase of 4.9%.
