A traditional model of looking at graduation rates in terms of four years doesn't necessarily apply to MSU.

"The statistic that the state wants, or that institutions usually compare, isn't a four year rate," said Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Education for the College of Communication Arts and Sciences Ann Hoffman. "It's actually a six year rate." 

That rate is tracked in "cohorts," based off when a graduating class began school at MSU. For example, the cohort beginning in 2008 had a graduation rate of 79 percent by 2014, according to a document from the Office of Planning and Budgets. If that same cohort was tracked in four years, the graduation rate would only be around 52 percent, Hoffman said. 

"They do that because some students take summers, some students under-enroll, some students study abroad, so it's not actually an eight semester number," Hoffman said. 

Overall, MSU's graduation rates have increased since 1999.

While rates are tracked by gender and ethnicity, it isn't tracked by college at a university level, although some colleges track their own rates or at least estimate the time it takes to graduate from one of their programs.

For the College of Communication Arts and Sciences, it's graduation rate would be 57.3 percent in four years, but 82.7 percent in six, above the university average, Hoffman said. 

The College of Engineering's website says a student can graduate in four years if they take an average course load of 16 credits per semester. Since both GPA and co-curricular work are important in that field, the college estimates it to take between 4.5 and 5 years to graduate. 

Tracking individual college graduation rates becomes difficult considering many students change their major to something outside of their original college, a secretary at the Office of Planning and Budgets said, and thus it is not tracked at an administrative level.