Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

I choose "from —."   To my ear, "graduated high school" (or college) just sounds incorrect.   I don't know if it is.   I'm sure someone here will know.   I do know this is something I've been hearing more and more, in the past number of years.   I don't remember anyone saying it when I graduated from high school.   Or, when I graduated from college.

Speaking as an old coot, I believe "graduated college" used to be considered correct, but people took up saying "graduate from college" in my day, to be complained at by the even older geezers.   That battle, it seemed, was lost; but now, as you say, "graduated college" seems to be coming back.

Me, I confess I prefer "graduated" without "from", partly because I heard it was right but mostly because no one else does it that way.   I like to be different.

Dick said:

...."I graduated from the school" is used as an intransitive verb, requiring no object and the preposition "from"....It would be correct to say "The school graduated me"....I cannot "graduate the school" any more than "the school graduates from me."

I started to make this very point about transitive and intransitive verbs, but then realized I couldn't see where it would end up.   That is, it seemed to end up where you led it, Dick—that "to graduate school" is incorrect—yet I already believed that conclusion was wrong.

Why do I believe it's wrong?   Well, the only theory I really believe is that it's because I learned decades ago, from elders who also cared about such as "whom" and the subjunctive mood, that the correct phrase though often misused is "I graduated college".   They turned out to be right about other things, so...   And by the way, they are no particular they; it's just an unattributed voice I found in the older writings back then.

So now I've spent the last 15 minutes confidently looking for other old guys like me to speak up and say that "graduated college" used to be considered the correct way, and in the process I ran across another usage that shook me:   "I was graduated from college".   Ah, maybe that (and not "graduated college") is the usage my elders repeatedly pushed at me.   I think I'm going to have to reverse my ruling, above; I'm no longer sure, and all the evidence seems to be against me.

Hi. "Graduate from" sounds more comfortable to my ear. I'm in my mid forties and graduated from high school in the 1980s.

Saying that I graduated high school or was graduated sounds so ugly. On the other hand, universities (or colleges, if you are in the United States) have graduate programs. So you could say that you graduated from a graduate program at the University of Toronto, Harvard, Yale, University of Manitoba, etc.