Graduation Year Calculator

How to calculate your graduation year

In the US, high school ends after 12th grade and graduation happens in the spring, usually in May or June. Your graduation year, or class year, is the spring you finish 12th grade. To work it out, take the year the current school year ends and add the number of grades you still have after this one.

Say you are in 8th grade during the 2026–27 school year. This school year ends in spring 2027, and you have 12 − 8 = 4 grades left, so you graduate in 2027 + 4 = 2031. You are the class of 2031.

The same rule works backwards. High school is four years, so your freshman year started in the fall four years before your class year. If you graduate in 2027, you started 9th grade in fall 2023. And because kindergarten through 12th grade is 13 school years, your class year is always the year you started kindergarten plus 13.

Show the class of 2027 in the calculator

Graduation year by grade (2026–27)

Find the grade you or your child are in this school year and read across. The bachelor's column assumes a four-year degree that starts right after high school.

Graduation year by birthday

A date of birth is not enough on its own, because it depends on when your state lets children start kindergarten. Children usually start kindergarten in the fall if they turn 5 by the state's cutoff date. September 1 is the most common cutoff. Some states use an earlier or later date, and a few leave the decision to each school district.

A child born on or before the cutoff starts kindergarten the year they turn 5 and graduates 18 years after their birth year. A child born after the cutoff waits a year and graduates 19 years after it. The table uses the September 1 cutoff; the calculator lets you pick a different date.

The rule works for past years too. Someone born in March 1988 turned 5 before September 1, 1993, started kindergarten that fall and graduated high school in 2006. Born in October 1988, they would have started a year later and graduated in 2007.

Try a March 1988 birthday

If you only know someone's age, subtract it from the current year and add 18. That gives the likely graduation year, give or take one depending on their birthday and the cutoff. Someone who is 23 in 2026 most likely graduated high school in 2021 or 2022.

What grade is the class of 2026 to 2039?

This table answers the question from the other side: given a class year, what grade are those students in during 2026–27, when did or will they start high school, and when were most of them born. Birth dates assume a September 1 cutoff.

When will I graduate college?

A bachelor's degree is designed to take four years of full-time study, so the usual estimate is your high school class year plus four. The class of 2027 would finish college around 2031. A two-year associate degree finishes two years after high school, and a master's degree usually adds one to two years after the bachelor's.

Plenty of students take longer than four years. Transferring between schools, changing majors, studying part time or taking a semester off all push the date back, while AP or dual enrollment credits can move it forward. That is why the calculator labels college years as estimates.

What can change your graduation year

The calculator assumes one grade per school year from kindergarten on. A few things move real students off that track:

• Starting kindergarten a year late, which parents sometimes choose for children born close to the cutoff. They graduate a year later than their birthday suggests.
• Skipping a grade or repeating one, which shifts graduation a year earlier or later.
• Moving to a state with a different cutoff date before school starts.
• Graduating early by taking extra credits, which some high schools allow.

Once a child is in school, the grade method is the most reliable, because it starts from where they actually are. Use the birthday method for children who have not started school yet, or to estimate someone else's class year.