CFA Pass Rates Finally Tick Higher After Plunging To Record Lows During Pandemic

The pass rate for the first level of the chartered financial analyst (CFA) exam ticked up with zero pandemic related cancellations for the first time since 2021, Bloomberg reported this week. 

38% of those who took the Level I test passed it, which was up from 36% in November 2022 and 37% in August of last year. Despite the tick higher, the numbers still come in under the 41% average pass rate over the last decade, the report notes. 

The report says the pass rates are among “signs of improvement and waning impact from the pandemic”, which helped drive pass rates significantly lower coinciding with the onset of the pandemic. 

Record low pass rates were recorded last year across all levels of the CFA, the report says. In February, about 17,000 candidates sat for the exam, which was administered at 459 testing centers worldwide. 

And the CFA Institute did a bit of what public schools have been doing when pass rates drop: they reworked some of the exam earlier this month to “emphasize practical skills and reduce the amount of time candidates study, in the biggest reworking since the test was introduced in 1963”, Bloomberg wrote. 

The record low pass rates also (conspicuously?) coincide with the CFA Institute choosing to offer the exam via computer, instead of on paper, as a result of Covid protocols. There are currently 190,000 charterholders worldwide, who took an average of 4 years to complete all three levels of the exam.