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What WGU's completion statistics actually mean

By Ilse Ravensworth, MBA, BSN, RN

Short answer

WGU publishes figures like "61% of grads finish within 23 months". The crucial word is grads. These describe how quickly people who completed the degree completed it — anyone who withdrew is not in the denominator.

So the statistic is not a success rate and should not be read as one. What it does tell you honestly is that roughly four in ten graduates needed longer than the headline window, and at a flat six-month term fee, "longer" has a price attached.

The published figures, as stated

  • 61% of Nursing Leadership and Management graduates finish within 23 months.
  • 64% of Nursing Informatics graduates finish within 24 months.
  • 62% of Nursing Education graduates finish within 24 months.
  • 62% of RN-to-MSN Leadership graduates finish within 37 months; 63% of Informatics within 36; 60% of Education within 38.
  • The FNP and PMHNP tracks are stated as taking 2.5 years rather than given as a percentage.

To WGU's credit, publishing these at all is more transparency than most online schools offer. Plenty of competitors quote only a "as few as X months" figure with no distribution behind it.

What the number does not tell you

  • Nothing about attrition. Survivorship is baked in. A programme where many people withdraw and the remainder finish fast would produce a flattering figure.
  • Nothing about your starting point. Graduates with substantial transfer credit are in the same pool as those starting from zero.
  • Nothing about hours. A nurse at twenty hours a week and one at eight are both in there.

How to use it properly anyway

Use the remainder, not the headline. Roughly four in ten needed more than the stated window, so plan as if you are one of them: take the published figure, add a term, and check the total still works. On a non-clinical route that is another $5,235; on a nurse practitioner track it is $7,155.

If the budget survives that addition, the decision is sound. If it only works at the headline pace, you are not buying a degree — you are buying a bet on your own next two years.

The comparison that is genuinely unfair

Do not set these figures against another school's "as few as" marketing claim. One is a distribution among finishers and the other is a best case. Compare like with like, or compare neither. This is the same trap as Capella's headline, which describes its fastest quartile rather than its typical student.

Related questions

What is WGU's graduation rate?

The completion figures WGU publishes on programme pages are time-to-completion among graduates, not graduation rates. Institution-level graduation and retention data for any US university is reported separately through federal IPEDS data, and that is the source to use if overall completion rather than speed is your question.

Is 61% within 23 months good?

It is a reasonable figure for a working-adult population, and it is more disclosure than most competitors offer. The useful reading is the inverse: about four in ten graduates took longer, so an extra term should be in your budget rather than a surprise.

Why does WGU not publish a failure rate?

Few universities do at programme level. Time-to-completion among graduates is a standard marketing statistic across the sector rather than something unique to WGU. Federal IPEDS reporting is where institution-level completion data lives for every accredited US school.

Do these figures include people with transfer credit?

They are not broken down that way, so graduates who arrived with substantial transfer credit sit in the same pool as those starting from zero. Since transfer credit is the single largest lever on your own timeline, your personal estimate should start from your transcript rather than from the published average.

Want a number that is actually about you?

Your transcript, your hours and your track produce a realistic term count. Published averages cannot.

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