<p>I’m not sure I understand what the controversy is in terms of the AVAILABILITY of data. Reliable data is available in colleges’ Common Data Sets, which for the most part are available on the college web sites. Because there are “standards” with the CDS–set by the schools that participate and the reporting type entities involved, e.g., the College Board–this is probably the best way to compare schools. In section B, raw numbers are given for number in cohort, number of cohort that graduate in 4, 5 and 6 years, and 6 year graduation rate. So, you can compare any schools that you want. There necessarily is a lag with the CDS because, for example, the 2012 report goes back to the 2006 cohort to be able to report the 6 year graduation rate. But I doubt that the numbers would change much in a 1 or 2 year period, I think that’s about as good as you are going to do. Based on the 2012 CDS and using Kenyon as a comparison school since that seems to be the school discussed in thsi thread, it does look like Oberlin’s 4 year graduation rate is lower, in the low 70’s vs Kenyon in the low 80’s. 5 year rates are much closer, 83% vs 86%, 6 year closer again, 85% vs 87%. I’m not sure why the Oberlin 4 year rate is lower, though I would guess that at least in part it’s related to the Con. It’s not broken out, but it would be interesting to compare the grad rates of Oberlin Arts & Sciences vs peer schools such as Kenyon, I would guess they are not much different. Oberlin’s 6 year grad rates and freshman retention rates are about where you would expect them to be, very similar to peer schools. I’m not sure its fair to compare them to Williams and Amherst, unless you are going to also compare Kenyon, Macalester, etc. to those places.</p>