The percentage of public high school students who graduated on time has reached a 40-year high, new data released Tuesday shows.

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The data, from the National Center for Education Statistics, was collected from the Class of 2010, the Washington Post reported. The estimates show that an estimated 78 percent of students across the U.S. earned their diploma within four years of starting high school.

The last time there were such high graduation rates was 1974, according to the statistics, the Post reported.

The new data also showed positive news for our area: students in Maryland and Virginia had higher graduation rates than the national average — 82.2 percent and 81.2 percent, respectively.

Washington D.C., however, had a 59.9 percent graduation rate—a lower rate than all but one state.