Montana's four-year graduation rate peaked at 86.6% in 2019. Five years later, it has fallen to 85.0% -- below where it stood in 2014, when the state was still in the middle of its most sustained period of improvement.

Three consecutive years of decline, from 2022 through 2024, have erased half the gains Montana made during a decade of progress. The trajectory is now pointed in the wrong direction, and the 90% graduation rate that once seemed within reach has become a mathematical impossibility without dramatic intervention.

Four eras of Montana graduation

The 14-year data record breaks into four distinct periods, each with its own story.

The surge (2011-2015): Montana's graduation rate climbed from 82.2% to 86.0%, gaining nearly 4 percentage points in four years. This was the state's golden era of graduation improvement, driven by initiatives like Graduation Matters Montana and a narrowing poverty gap.

The plateau (2016-2019): The rate flattened, oscillating between 85.6% and 86.6%. Montana was making marginal gains -- a few tenths of a point here and there -- but the momentum from the surge years had stalled.

The COVID disruption (2020-2021): The rate dipped to 85.9% in 2020 before recovering to 86.1% in 2021. The pandemic impact on graduation was surprisingly mild at the state level, though subgroup-level data tells a different story.

The decline (2022-2024): Three straight years of erosion -- down 0.33 points, then 0.18, then 0.62. The 2024 drop of 0.62 points was the largest single-year decline since 2020.

The 2024 drop was the steepest in years

Year-over-year changes in graduation rates are typically small -- measured in tenths of a percentage point. Montana's 0.62-point drop in 2024 was the largest non-COVID decline in the data record and roughly three times the magnitude of the 2022 and 2023 losses.

The cumulative decline from peak to current stands at 1.63 percentage points. That may sound modest, but it represents a reversal of roughly 40% of the gains Montana made during the 2011-2015 surge. At the current pace of decline -- averaging 0.38 points per year over the last three years -- the state would fall below 84% by 2027.

Why 90% is further away than ever

When Montana was climbing in the early 2010s, the 90% threshold was a plausible aspiration. The non-economically-disadvantaged student rate had already exceeded 93% by 2014, proving that Montana schools could produce graduation rates well above 90% for students without economic barriers.

But the overall rate has never come closer than 3.4 points to 90%. And with three equity gaps stubbornly refusing to close -- Native American students at 66%, English Learners at 65%, and economically disadvantaged students at 77% -- the math simply does not work. These three populations pull the state average down by enough to keep 90% structurally out of reach.

Below 2014 -- and below the nation

At 85.0%, Montana now sits approximately 2 percentage points below the national four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate of roughly 87%. For a predominantly rural, majority-White state with above-average per-pupil spending, falling below the national average is a notable position.

The 2014 comparison is particularly pointed. In that year, Montana was on the upswing -- posting 85.4% on the way to its eventual peak. A decade later, the rate has slipped below that mark from the other direction, on the way down.

What reversed the momentum

The data alone cannot explain why Montana's graduation rate stopped climbing and started falling. But several structural factors are visible in the numbers:

The Native American graduation rate, after peaking at 69.2% in 2021, dropped 3.1 points to 66.1% by 2023. American Indian dropout rates spiked to 10.7% in 2022 before partially recovering. These movements in Montana's largest minority student population pull the state average.

The economically disadvantaged rate peaked at 78.0% in 2018 and has not been measured since 2020 due to limited subgroup data availability. If it has followed the same downward trajectory as the overall rate, that would compound the decline.

And Montana's special education graduation rate, which has been stuck in the 75-76% range for years, represents another population where the state has been unable to sustain progress.

Montana rode a wave of improvement from 2012 to 2015 that made 90% look plausible. A decade later, the state is further from that mark than when the push began. The interventions that worked in 2012 harvested the easiest gains. What remains are the students those programs could not reach.

Data source

Analysis uses four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate data from the Montana Office of Public Instruction, covering 2011-2024. National graduation rate comparison from NCES (2021-22).

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.