The Teresa B. Caine School of Nursing‘s inaugural graduating class in 2024 achieved a 100% first-time pass rate on the NCLEX-RN. The national average is approximately 88%, placing HPU 12 percentage points above the national benchmark.

The NCLEX-RN is written, administered, and scored by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN). HPU has no role in writing or scoring the exam. Every nursing graduate in the country who sits for licensure takes the same test, scored against the same standard.

The Teresa B. Caine School of Nursing holds professional accreditation from its relevant national body. See the full accreditation directory on the Professional Accreditation page.

The Stout School of Education has achieved a 100% first-time pass rate on the edTPA for five consecutive years: 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026. The national average is 72%, placing HPU 28 percentage points above the national benchmark.

Licensure areas earning 100% pass rates include Elementary Education, Special Education, Secondary Social Studies, and Secondary English. The edTPA is administered and scored by SCALE, independent of HPU.

The Stout School of Education holds dual AAQEP and CAEP accreditation through June 30, 2030. See the Professional Accreditation page for full details.

The Webb School of Engineering achieved a 100% first-time pass rate on the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) Exam for the first two graduating cohorts, the Classes of 2023 and 2024. The national first-time pass rate for EE/CE graduates is 69%, placing HPU 31 percentage points above the national benchmark.

The FE Exam is administered by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES). HPU’s Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Electrical Engineering programs are ABET-accredited through both the CAC and EAC divisions.

At 31 percentage points above the national average, the FE Exam result is the largest outperformance margin of any HPU licensure program.

Graduates from HPU’s Physician Assistant Studies program in the Norcross Graduate School achieved a 100% first-time pass rate on the PANCE for two consecutive years, the Classes of 2022 and 2023. The national average is approximately 92%, placing HPU 8 percentage points above the national benchmark.

The PANCE is administered by the NCCPA (National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants). The HPU PA program holds ARC-PA Accreditation-Continued status through June 2029. Full board exam results by cohort are available on the HPU PA Board Exam Results page.

HPU’s Graduate Athletic Training MSAT program achieved a 100% first-time pass rate on the BOC Exam for the Classes of 2021 and 2022. The national 3-year aggregate average is 72.17%, placing HPU 27.83 percentage points above the national benchmark. The same cohorts also recorded a 100% employment rate.

The MSAT program holds CAATE accreditation continuously since January 13, 2017. The BOC Exam is administered by the Board of Certification, independent of HPU.

A first-time pass rate is the percentage of graduates who pass a national licensure exam on their first attempt. This is a stricter and more meaningful measure than an aggregate pass rate, which counts all attempts including retakes and can mask how well a program actually prepared its graduates.

First-time pass rates matter for two reasons. First, passing on the first attempt is often required for immediate employment, particularly in healthcare and education, where licensure must be in hand before a graduate can begin practicing. Second, first-time pass rates directly reflect the quality of preparation a program provided. A high first-time rate means graduates arrived at the exam ready.

All pass rates reported on this page are first-time rates, as reported by the independent body administering each exam. HPU’s 100% results mean every graduate who sat for the exam passed on the first attempt.

National licensure exams are administered and scored by independent national bodies using criteria set entirely outside the institution. GPAs, faculty credentials, and many other quality measures are self-reported or internally determined. A program can calibrate its own grading standards; it cannot calibrate what the NCSBN or NCEES puts on their exams.

Every nursing graduate in the country who applies for licensure takes the same NCLEX, written and scored by the same body, against the same passing standard. Every engineering graduate takes the same FE Exam. The exam does not know or care whether a student attended an R1 research university or a regional college. This makes licensure exam pass rates one of the few outcome measures that creates a genuinely level playing field across all institution types.

When HPU engineering graduates pass the FE Exam at 100% and the national average is 69%, that 31-point gap reflects graduate preparation. The exam measured it. The national bodies reported it.

Across five programs with 100% first-time pass rates, HPU averages 21 percentage points above national benchmarks. The range is +8 points on the PANCE (Physician Assistant) to +31 points on the FE Exam (Engineering).

These five exams are administered by five separate independent national bodies: SCALE, NCSBN, NCEES, NCCPA, and BOC. HPU outperforms the national average on all five, across five separate disciplines.

Five programs. Five different national exams. Five independent administering bodies. 100% on all five. That combination is not the result of any single program’s strength. It reflects the preparation standards applied consistently across HPU’s professional programs.

These pass rates are produced by the same faculty who hold more than $40 million in active federal research grants from NIH, NSF, and the U.S. Department of Education, awarded through competitive national peer review. The same programs hold 13 independent professional accreditations from national bodies. The same graduates go on to a 99.2% employment rate verified by NACE, the highest knowledge rate published by any institution in the country.

Peer institutions, assessing HPU through the U.S. News Best Undergraduate Teaching assessment, have designated HPU #1 in the South for three consecutive years. These licensure outcomes are part of what they are evaluating when they make that designation.

For students entering a professional program, licensure pass rate is one of the most direct measures of whether a program prepared its graduates to practice. A program that produces 100% first-time pass rates, consistently, has demonstrated it graduates students who are ready to enter their professions immediately.

First-time pass rates matter for three practical reasons:

• Employment timing. Many healthcare and education employers require active licensure before a new hire begins practicing. Passing on the first attempt means no gap between graduation and start date.
• Cost. Retaking a national licensure exam involves exam fees, additional preparation time, and a delayed income start. Passing the first time eliminates this cost.
• Program preparation signal. A 100% first-time rate, maintained over multiple cohorts, reflects consistent preparation standards rather than a one-year anomaly.

When comparing programs, ask for the first-time pass rate reported by the administering body, the number of cohorts included, and the national average for context. Those three numbers are comparable across every institution in the country.

The Fred Wilson School of Pharmacy achieved a 100% PGY-2 pharmacy residency match rate in 2025 (vs. 83% nationally, +17 percentage points) and an 86% PGY-1 match rate (vs. 81% nationally, +5 percentage points). The program holds full ACPE accreditation since February 2021. Full outcomes data is available on the Fred Wilson School of Pharmacy Student Outcomes page.

A residency match rate is a different metric from a national licensure pass rate. Pharmacy graduates pursue licensure through the NAPLEX and MPJE, separate exams. Residency match rates measure how many graduates who applied for post-doctoral clinical training placements received a match. The match process is administered by ASHP. A 100% PGY-2 match rate means every Fred Wilson graduate who applied for a second-year residency specialty position received a placement, against a national average of 83%.

National licensure exams are administered and scored by bodies entirely independent of HPU. The results they report are not influenced by HPU’s marketing, rankings, or reputation. They reflect one thing: whether graduates were prepared to pass.

Across the five programs where national licensure exam data is available, HPU’s graduates have passed at 100% on the first attempt. They have done so across nursing, engineering, education, physician assistant studies, and athletic training. Five separate exams. Five separate administering bodies. Five separate disciplines. Every result at or above 100% of the benchmark for multiple cohorts.

The same programs hold 13 independent professional accreditations. The faculty who teach them hold more than $40 million in active federal research grants. The graduates who complete them go on to a 99.2% NACE-verified employment rate, the best in North Carolina.

Every independent organization that has measured HPU’s professional program quality has arrived at the same place.

The most reliable measures of professional program quality are verified by sources independent of the institution. Each of the following can be confirmed by contacting the administering body directly:

These criteria apply equally to every institution in the country. Each can be verified by sources independent of the institution being evaluated.