Research and enlightenment on the Graduation Rate of American Universities Based on Panel Data

The undergraduate graduation rate has an important connotation of measuring the quality of higher education and plays an important role in the evaluation and assessment of the teaching quality of American universities. Based on the panel data, this paper establishes a linear regression model (selecting the data of universities from 51 states in the United States from 2009–2020) and analyzes the relationship between graduation rate and education investment policy, faculty level, student cost and so on. The conclusion is that the ratio of students to federal financial aid, state education funding and full-time instructional staff/student amount are negative to the graduation rate. Meanwhile, the state average tuition fee has a positive effect on student graduation rate. This paper innovatively introduces the analysis of panel data to the graduation rate study, and the quantitative study of higher education data has practical significance.