INSIDE HIGHER ED — The national six-year completion rate for students who started college in 2015 reached 62.2 percent, according to a new report out today from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. That’s an increase of 1.2 percentage points over the fall 2014 cohort and 1.5 percentage points over the 2013 cohort. “Students who started college six years ago have been completing degrees and certificates at higher rates than in recent years,” Doug Shapiro, executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, said in a statement. “This broad measure of performance for higher education as a nationwide system, including transfers among two- and four-year schools of all kinds, shows long-term improvements for students and colleges alike, gains that took hold mostly in the pre-pandemic period.” This year marked the third year in a row that the national completion rate exceeded 60 percent.