NCLEX pass rates by nursing school: how to find and use the data

NCLEX pass rates are the clearest objective signal you have when comparing nursing programs. They tell you what percentage of graduates passed their licensing exam – which is, after all, the whole point of nursing school. A program can have impressive marketing, updated simulation labs, and enthusiastic alumni testimonials, yet still produce graduates who struggle to get licensed.

This guide explains where to find NCLEX pass rate data, what the numbers mean in practice, how to compare schools fairly, and what other signals to look at alongside pass rates when making your decision.

NCLEX pass rates at a glance

A word of caution on the headline number: 86.7% is the first-time, US-educated figure, and it is the one to compare a school against. You will also see an all-candidates rate of 69.1% quoted as “the NCLEX pass rate” – that blends in repeat testers and internationally educated candidates and is not a fair benchmark for a US program’s graduating cohort. Confirm which population any figure describes before you use it.

The 2025 national figure is also worth reading as news rather than as a constant. It fell 4.5 points from 91.2% in 2024, the first national decline since the Next Generation NCLEX launched in April 2023. A program whose rate dropped a few points between those two years may have moved with the national tide rather than deteriorated – which is exactly why you compare a school to the national figure for the same year, not to a remembered benchmark.

Where to find official NCLEX pass rate data

The National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) publishes annual pass rate data. The most reliable sources, in order of authority:

1. Your state board of nursing website. Every state board is required to publish NCLEX pass rates for programs within the state, usually annually. Search “[your state] board of nursing NCLEX pass rates” – most boards have a public report in PDF or table format. This is the most granular source because it shows school-by-school data for your specific state.

2. NCSBN annual reports. The NCSBN publishes national-level pass rate breakdowns at ncsbn.org. These aggregate totals are useful for understanding national averages, but don’t give you school-specific data.

3. The program directly. Accredited programs are required to report pass rates to their accrediting body and often publish them on their website or in program materials. If a program won’t share their most recent NCLEX pass rate when you ask, that’s informative.

4. ACEN, CCNE, and NLN CNEA program directories. The three nursing accreditors – the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN), the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE), and the National League for Nursing Commission for Nursing Education Accreditation (NLN CNEA) – maintain public program directories. Some include pass rate data or link to state board data.

First-attempt vs. overall pass rates

Most published figures report first-attempt pass rates – the percentage of graduates who passed on their very first try. This is the most meaningful number.

Some programs report “overall” or “cumulative” pass rates, which include graduates who passed on a second or third attempt. An overall rate will always be higher than a first-attempt rate. When comparing schools, confirm you’re looking at the same metric. First-attempt rates are the industry standard.

The NCLEX also has two separate exams: NCLEX-RN (for registered nurses) and NCLEX-PN (for practical/vocational nurses). A program may offer one or both. Compare RN rates with RN rates and PN rates with PN rates – they’re assessed against different standards.

What pass rate thresholds really mean

The 80% figure circulates as a single national standard, and the reality is more layered than that. All three national nursing accreditors do write 80% into their standards, but they allow different routes to reach it, and only some state boards write a number into regulation at all. Whether a floor binds your program – and how hard it is to clear – depends on which state regulates it and which body accredits it. That is worth understanding before you use 80% as a filter.

Where 80% is written into state regulation. Several boards do set it explicitly, and Virginia’s rule 18VAC90-27-210 is the clearest published example: it requires a first-time pass rate of not less than 80%, calculated on the cumulative results of the past four quarters, and specifies an escalating consequence schedule. One year below the floor requires a corrective action plan. Two consecutive years moves the program to conditional approval with terms and conditions, a further plan of correction, and a board site visit for which the program must pay the fee prescribed by 18VAC90-27-20 before the visit takes place. Three consecutive years authorizes the board to withdraw approval outright. Tennessee (rule 1000-01-.14) and Texas (BON rule 215.4) converge on the same 80% figure through their own mechanisms.

Where no numeric floor exists. Utah sets no pass-rate standard for program approval, and its Office of Professional Licensure Review has documented that the state is unusual in not requiring state-regulator approval as a precondition of operating a nursing program at all – the state standard since 2012 has simply been programmatic accreditation. Washington and Vermont likewise hold programs to their accreditor’s standard rather than a state-set percentage. Colorado uses 75% rather than 80%.

What the accreditors require. All three national nursing accreditors write 80% into their standards. What separates them is how many alternative ways a program is allowed to reach it.

CCNE requires 80% under key element IV-C of its Standards for Accreditation of Baccalaureate and Graduate Nursing Programs, and a program satisfies it by any one of four calculations: first-time takers in the most recent calendar year; all takers including repeaters who passed, in the most recent calendar year; first-time takers across the three most recent calendar years; or all takers across the three most recent calendar years. Each campus, site and track has to clear the bar separately, and candidates who sit more than two years after completing the program may be excluded.

ACEN also sets 80%, as one of three alternative ways to satisfy Criterion 5.3 of its 2023 Standards: the most recent annual rate or the three-year mean must meet 80% for first-time test-takers, or 80% for first-time test-takers and repeaters combined, or sit at or above the national mean for that program type. That last route is the one with real consequences – a program below 80% that is nonetheless above the national mean for its program type satisfies the criterion, and in a year when the national mean itself falls below 80%, as it did in 2025, that route opens up for a great many programs.

NLN CNEA is the strictest of the three. Quality Indicator I-D requires 80% among first-time takers only, measured either as the three-year mean or as the most recent single year. Repeaters cannot be used to reach the number, and there is no national-mean alternative.

The practical reading: the accreditor’s floor is rarely what catches a struggling program first, because the multi-year and all-takers routes absorb a single bad cohort. A state board’s four-quarter calculation is far less forgiving.

The practical consequence for you as an applicant: an 80% floor is a compliance minimum in the states that impose one, not a mark of quality. A program hovering at 81-82% in Virginia is technically compliant and barely so. A program at 81-82% in Utah is not being measured against any state number at all, which is a reason to look harder rather than to relax – ask the program directly what benchmark it holds itself to and what happened the last time it missed.

Programs consistently above 90% are worth noting. That level of pass rate doesn’t happen by accident. It reflects strong content delivery, active NCLEX preparation support, and rigorous student readiness tracking throughout the program.

How to interpret pass rate data fairly

Raw pass rates can mislead if you don’t account for context:

Cohort size matters. A program with 12 graduates that shows a 91% pass rate (11 of 12 students) is not necessarily comparable to a program with 200 graduates at 88%. Small cohort rates swing wildly year to year – one student failing drops a 10-person cohort by 10 points. Look for multi-year trends, not single-year snapshots.

Attrition rates affect the calculation. Some programs maintain high pass rates by washing out struggling students before graduation. If a program admits 40 students and graduates 20, the 20 who remain are a self-selected group. Ask about both graduation rates and pass rates – a program with 95% pass rates and 50% attrition has a different story than 90% pass rates and 90% graduation rates.

Program type changes outcomes less than you would expect. ADN and BSN programs test to the same NCLEX-RN standard, and BSN graduates do pass at a slightly higher rate – but in 2025 the gap was 1.5 points (87.6% baccalaureate against 86.1% associate). That is far narrower than the five-to-eight-point gap frequently claimed, and it is small enough that the difference between two individual programs will usually swamp the difference between the two degree types. Diploma programs, now a small cohort of about 2,700 candidates nationally, sat lower at 83.3%. LPN programs (NCLEX-PN) are measured separately and are not comparable to either.

What to look at alongside NCLEX pass rates

Pass rates are the primary signal, but they shouldn’t be the only factor:

Accreditation status. A program must be accredited by the state board of nursing to operate, but voluntary accreditation by ACEN, CCNE, or NLN CNEA signals an additional layer of external review. See our guide to nursing school accreditation for what each accreditor covers and why it matters for graduate school admissions and hospital hiring.

NCLEX prep support. Does the program include ATI, Hesi, or Kaplan as part of the curriculum? Do they require students to pass predictor assessments before allowing graduation? Programs with active readiness tracking tend to produce stronger first-attempt pass rates.

Clinical placement quality. Classroom instruction matters less than clinical hours in terms of real skill development. Ask where students do their clinicals – community hospital, Level I trauma center, outpatient only, or a mix. A broad clinical exposure builds the decision-making capacity the NCLEX tests.

Employment outcomes. A program’s job placement rate tells you something different from pass rates but equally important. What percentage of graduates have nursing employment within six months of licensure?

Building your school comparison

When you’re evaluating two or three programs, build a side-by-side comparison using this framework:

A program that scores well across all six rows – even if it’s not the highest pass rate in absolute terms – is a stronger choice than one with a headline 93% rate but thin clinical exposure and no structured NCLEX prep.

When to walk away

Walk away from a program – or at minimum ask very hard questions – if:

• NCLEX pass rates are unavailable or the program is reluctant to share them
• The most recent published rate is below 80%, or below the national figure for that year and degree type in a state that sets no floor
• Pass rates have declined for two or more consecutive years
• The program is on state probation or conditional approval
• The graduation rate is below 70% (suggesting the pass rate is inflated by attrition)

High enrollment demand means nursing programs don’t always have strong accountability pressure from applicants. If you don’t ask, many programs won’t volunteer unflattering data.

Making the decision

NCLEX pass rates are the closest thing nursing school selection has to an outcome metric. Use them as a filter first, comparing each program against the national figure for the same year and degree type rather than against a fixed 80% that may or may not apply where you are studying. Then use the fuller picture of accreditation, clinical placement, cost, and location to make your final call.

For the full context on how programs compare across other dimensions, see our guides on how to get into nursing school and nursing school prerequisites. If you’re weighing an ADN at a community college against a BSN program, our ADN vs BSN comparison covers the career and cost trade-offs in detail.

References

1. National Council of State Boards of Nursing, “2025 NCLEX Examination Statistics” (Research Brief Vol. 96), NCSBN, June 2026. Table 1 and Table 8 (NCLEX-RN by degree type), Table 12 (NCLEX-PN by candidate type). https://www.ncsbn.org/public-files/2025_NCLEXExamStats_Final.pdf
2. National Council of State Boards of Nursing, “2024 NCLEX Examination Statistics” (Research Brief Vol. 94), NCSBN, July 2025 – prior vintage, used for the year-over-year comparison. https://www.ncsbn.org/public-files/2024_NCLEXExamStats_Final.pdf
3. National Council of State Boards of Nursing, “NCLEX Pass Rates,” NCSBN. https://www.ncsbn.org/exams/exam-statistics-and-publications/nclex-pass-rates.page
4. National Council of State Boards of Nursing, “Nurse Licensure and NCLEX Examination Statistics,” NCSBN. https://www.ncsbn.org/exams/exam-statistics-and-publications/nurse-licensure-and-nclex-exam-statistics.page
5. National Council of State Boards of Nursing, “NCSBN Launches Next Generation NCLEX Exam,” NCSBN, April 2023. https://www.ncsbn.org/news/ncsbn-launches-next-generation-nclex-exam
6. Virginia Administrative Code, 18VAC90-27-210, “Closing of a nursing education program; NCLEX pass rate requirements,” Virginia Board of Nursing. https://law.lis.virginia.gov/admincode/title18/agency90/chapter27/section210/
7. Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing, “The ACEN 2023 Standards and Impact of Accreditation on the Quality of Nursing Education,” ACEN. https://www.acenursing.org/news/the-acen-2023-standards-and-impact-of-accreditation-on-the-quality-of-nursing-education
8. Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing, “Search Accredited Nursing Programs,” ACEN. https://www.acenursing.org/search-programs
9. Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, “CCNE-Accredited Programs Directory,” American Association of Colleges of Nursing. https://directory.ccnecommunity.org/reports/accprog.asp
10. Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, “Standards for Accreditation of Baccalaureate and Graduate Nursing Programs,” amended 2024, key element IV-C – 80% licensure pass rate satisfied by any one of four calculations (first-time or all takers, most recent calendar year or three most recent calendar years), applied per campus/site/track. CCNE’s amended 2026 Standards were approved 7 July 2026 and take effect 1 January 2027, with key element IV-C carried over unchanged; the 2024 Standards remain in effect through 31 December 2026. https://www.aacnnursing.org/Portals/0/PDFs/CCNE/CCNE-Education-Standards-2026.pdf
11. National League for Nursing Commission for Nursing Education Accreditation, “NLN CNEA Standards of Accreditation,” June 2026, Quality Indicator I-D – minimum 80% licensure or certification pass rate among first-time takers, three-year mean or most recent single year, counting only candidates who sat within two years of degree conferral.
12. Utah Office of Professional Licensure Review, “Legislative Inquiry Report: Nursing Education Oversight,” January 2024. https://oplr.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/OPLR-Legislative-Inquiry-Report-Nursing-Education-Oversight-PDF-for-Publication-1-3-2024-2-1.pdf
13. National Center for Education Statistics, “Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS),” U.S. Department of Education. https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/