Graduate from

How to use the verb "graduate" correctly

This is an entry on my list of Common Errors in English Usage. Visit the main page for direct links to additional entries.

According to convention, graduate is supposed to be followed by the preposition from when taking a school as an object:

graduate high school
graduate from high school

Truly old-fashioned grammar police use graduate in the passive voice when a student is the subject of the verb graduate, but this usage is almost obsolete in contemporary American English:

She was graduated from Aragon High School in June. (passive voice = archaic usage)

She graduated from Aragon High School in June. (active voice = current usage)

When a school is the subject of the verb graduate, it is a transitive verb and can take an object without a preposition:

Lowell High School graduated 600 students this year. (current usage)

Related Resources

Common Errors in English Usage: Errors in diction and idiom commonly made by native speakers of English

List of Common Errors in English Usage (PDF): Printable version of the complete list

Common Grammar Errors: A list of common errors in grammar (topics like subject-verb agreement and parallelism) as distinct from usage

List of Common Errors in English Usage: PDF version