Track Women's Graduation Rate

Completion Proportions by Gender 2024 graph
Completion Proportions by Gender 2024

As part of our strong commitment to gender equity in education, the University of Newcastle maintains a robust data infrastructure to monitor and analyse student progression and completion outcomes, including a gender-based comparison of graduation rates.

Through our Equity and Student Progression Dashboard, we track:

  • Graduation likelihood and rates by gender across all disciplines;
  • Progression milestones, such as course completion, credit accumulation, and academic performance;
  • Trends over time, to identify any emerging equity gaps or disparities between male and female students.

In 2024, this system continued to provide reliable, real-time data that informed our academic and student support strategies. The data from the past three years — including the most recent 2024 cohort — shows that women at the University of Newcastle consistently outperform men in progression and completion rates. This reflects positively on both the performance of our female student body and the effectiveness of our support systems.

Schemes and Initiatives to Support Success

While the graduation gap currently favours women, we maintain a range of equity-focused initiatives designed to:

  • Ensure continued success for female students, particularly those from underrepresented or disadvantaged backgrounds;
  • Monitor and support at-risk students through early intervention and tailored academic support;
  • Provide targeted mentoring, leadership, and wellbeing programs, many of which are designed to support the specific needs of women in higher education;
  • Support success in traditionally male-dominated fields through programs like HunterWiSE (for women in STEM) and academic mentorship schemes.

We also recognise that intersectionality plays a role in graduation outcomes, and we are working to embed more granular equity tracking — including cultural background, disability, and socio-economic status — to ensure that all women receive the support they need to thrive.

Our ongoing measurement and responsive strategies reflect our broader commitment to inclusive excellence and ensuring that gender is never a barrier to academic success.