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20 New Hampshire Districts Hit All-Time Low Graduation Rates in 2025

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Something went wrong across New Hampshire in 2025 — not in one district, not in one region, but everywhere.

Twenty districts posted their lowest four-year graduation rate in at least 11 years of available data, a surge in all-time lows that cut across geography, wealth, and district size. The list includes the state capital (Concord^↗, 73.0 percent), the second-largest city (Nashua^↗, 82.3 percent), and a string of affluent suburbs — Bedford^↗ at 87.8 percent, Londonderry^↗ at 87.8 percent, Goffstown^↗ at 87.7 percent — that had never dipped this low.

This happened in a year when the state's dropout rate fell to its lowest level on record: 2.2 percent.

Where the Lows Hit

The 20 districts at all-time low are all traditional public school districts — not a single charter school appears on the list, though several charters carry far lower rates. What unifies the all-time-low districts is that 2025 represented a break from their own history, not that they are the state's worst performers in absolute terms.

Farmington^↗, at 70.7 percent with a 58-student cohort, posted the lowest rate among traditional districts at all-time low. Hudson^↗, a southern New Hampshire suburb of 254 graduates, fell to 77.6 percent. Berlin^↗, the North Country's largest community, dropped to 78.3 percent.

But the most consequential records were set by larger districts. Concord's 73.0 percent — a 9.2-point drop from the prior year — left the capital with a lower graduation rate than Manchester^↗, historically the state's weakest performer among large cities. Nashua's 82.3 percent extended a three-year decline streak that has erased a decade of progress.

The Contrast with All-Time Highs

Not every district fell. Eleven districts posted all-time highs in 2025, including Oyster River Coop^↗ at 99.1 percent, Epping^↗ at 100 percent, and Dover^↗ at 91.5 percent. Merrimack^↗ reached 91.9 percent and Windham^↗ hit 96.6 percent.

But the math is lopsided. For every district that reached a new peak in 2025, roughly two hit a new floor. In most prior years, the ratio was closer to even. The 2021 COVID year, when the state's overall rate dipped to 87.1 percent, produced fewer all-time lows than 2025.

Suburban Districts in Unfamiliar Territory

Perhaps the most striking feature of the 2025 data is where the new lows appeared. Bedford and Londonderry are communities where median household incomes exceed $100,000, school funding is abundant, and graduation has historically been all but guaranteed. Bedford peaked at 97.8 percent in 2017. Londonderry peaked at 96.4 percent the same year. Both have fallen roughly 10 points from those peaks — a decline that would be alarming in any district, but is shocking in communities with these resources.

Goffstown, another southern New Hampshire suburb, dropped to 87.7 percent from a peak of 95.2 percent. Fall Mountain Regional fell to 83.2 percent. Pembroke hit 82.6 percent.

The pattern suggests that whatever drove the 2025 reversal — and the data cannot isolate a single cause — was not confined to under-resourced districts. It reached into communities where the educational infrastructure is, by any measure, strong.

The Missing Explanation

New Hampshire's graduation data lacks the demographic breakdowns that would help explain why 2025 was different. The state does not report graduation rates by race, income status, English proficiency, or disability designation at the district level. All we can say is that the dropout rate reached a historic low while the graduation rate also dropped, meaning the "unaccounted" population — students who were still enrolled, transferred, or earned a HiSET equivalency — grew to its largest share.

Whether the 20 all-time lows reflect a cohort-specific composition effect, the lagged impact of pandemic-era learning disruptions finally reaching the senior year, or something else entirely is a question the data raises but cannot answer.

The New Hampshire Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment.

Data Source

This analysis uses four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate data from the New Hampshire Department of Education, covering the graduating classes of 2015 through 2025. A district is classified as "at all-time low" if its 2025 rate equals its minimum rate across all available years, with at least three years of data required.

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

Bedford and Londonderry: Affluent Suburbs Join the Graduation Slide

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT

When graduation rates decline, the assumption is that the damage concentrates in under-resourced districts — cities with high poverty, thin tax bases, and the chronic challenges that come with both. New Hampshire's 2025 data breaks that assumption.

Bedford^↗ hit 87.8 percent, an all-time low. Londonderry^↗ hit 87.8 percent, also an all-time low. These are not struggling communities. They are among New Hampshire's wealthiest suburbs, places where median household incomes exceed $100,000, school funding is among the state's highest, and graduation had been virtually guaranteed for most of the past decade.

A 10-Point Decline

The scale of the decline is striking. Bedford peaked at 97.8 percent in 2017 — a rate that meant just 7 students in a cohort of 318 failed to graduate on time. By 2025, that rate had fallen to 87.8 percent with a 337-student cohort, meaning roughly 41 students did not finish. The decline from peak to current: 10.0 percentage points.

Londonderry's trajectory is nearly identical. The district peaked at 96.4 percent in 2017 and fell to 87.8 percent in 2025, a 8.6-point decline. Both districts dropped roughly 7.5 points from 2024 alone — the sharpest single-year decline either has ever recorded.

Not Just Two Districts

Bedford and Londonderry are the most prominent examples, but the suburban slide extends further. Among southern New Hampshire suburbs:

Goffstown^↗: peaked at 95.2 percent, now at 87.7 percent (all-time low)
Hudson^↗: peaked at 93.8 percent, now at 77.6 percent (all-time low)
Salem^↗: peaked at 95.7 percent, now at 89.1 percent

Not every suburb declined. Windham^↗ posted 96.6 percent in 2025, near its all-time high. Merrimack^↗ reached 91.9 percent, also a record. The pattern is not universal suburban failure — it is a significant subset of communities that were near the top now converging toward the state average.

What Affluence Does Not Protect Against

The suburban decline in 2025 is notable because it removes the most obvious explanations for low graduation rates. These districts do not lack funding. Their students are not, on average, facing the concentrated poverty that characterizes Manchester or Franklin. Their school facilities are well-maintained and their teacher retention is relatively high.

If funding, infrastructure, and community wealth were sufficient to maintain high graduation rates, Bedford and Londonderry would not be at all-time lows. Whatever drove the 2025 reversal — and without demographic breakdowns in the graduation data, the cause remains opaque — it reached into communities where the traditional risk factors for low graduation are largely absent.

One possible explanation is that chronic absenteeism, which doubled statewide from 13 to 24 percent between 2019 and 2023, may have penetrated suburban districts more deeply than earlier data suggested. Students who were chronically absent in 9th or 10th grade during the pandemic disruption years are now reaching their expected graduation date. If they accumulated credit deficits during those years, even affluent families and well-resourced schools may struggle to close the gap within four years.

Another possibility is cohort composition. In a district with 337 graduates, a single year with an unusually high share of students with disabilities, English learners, or other populations that historically graduate at lower rates could shift the overall number by several points. Without subgroup data, this explanation is speculative.

The Convergence Question

Bedford and Londonderry are now both at 87.8 percent — barely above the state average of 87.5. In 2017, both were roughly 8-9 points above the state. The gap between these affluent suburbs and the statewide rate has collapsed.

If the decline is temporary — a single bad year driven by an unusual cohort — the 2026 data will show a rebound. But if the decline reflects structural forces that have taken hold in suburban communities (chronic absenteeism, mental health challenges, post-pandemic disengagement), the convergence may persist. The question is whether 2025 was an outlier or a new baseline.

Bedford and Londonderry did not respond to requests for comment.

Data Source

This analysis uses four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate data from the New Hampshire Department of Education, covering the graduating classes of 2015 through 2025.

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