Impact of Removing Exit Exams on Graduation Rates

Over the last 15 years, almost a third of states have removed requirements to pass exit exams to graduate high school. This brief leverages an original data set of state-level graduation requirements between 2008–2009 and 2019–2020 to identify the effects of removing exit exams on 4-year adjusted cohort graduation rates (ACGR). Removing exams led to increases in school-level ACGR of about 3 percentage points, with larger effects on the limited English proficient (LEP) ACGR at 10 percentage points and smaller effects on the ACGR for White students at 2 percentage points. The LEP ACGR is projected to increase each year, up 15 percentage points at 4 years after exam removal.