Learn English – “Will graduate” vs. “will be graduated” vs. “is going to graduate”

formalityfutureprogressive-aspecttenseswill-be-going

Which of the following sentences are correct?

  1. He will graduate in May.
  2. He will be graduated in May.
  3. He is going to graduate in May.

Issue 1: Is the second one grammatical?
Issue 2: There is high uncertainty that cause he may not graduate in May, like fail one course?
Issue 3: In a formal letter, which one is correct?

Besides, I heard from one of my friend whose mother tongue is not English: "I have been graduated from Boston university". Is that one grammatical as well?

I know the second one is passive and not correct but in this article I saw somebody use it. Therefore I am confused.

Best Answer

They are all grammatical. Merriam-Webster gives three definitions of graduate in connection with schools.

transitive verb:
1 a : to grant an academic degree or diploma to
1 b : to be graduated from
intransitive verb:
1 : to receive an academic degree or diploma

If you are talking about a single student, the intransitive verb—"He will graduate in May" or "He is going to graduate in May"—is what is generally used.

Your second sentence: "He will be graduated in May," is the passive of *"X University will graduate him in May," using definition 1a (transitive). This sentence sounds strange to me because people usually use the intransitive in the active voice rather than the transitive in the passive voice (unless they have a good reason to use the transitive). However, "X University will be graduating 5,000 students in May" sounds perfectly fine. And you can come up with situations where the transitive in passive voice sounds fine with a single student, for example, "We will not be graduating Bob this year, but Ray will be graduated in May."

Definition 1b (transitive) appears in constructions like "I graduated MIT in 2009." This construction sounds informal to me, possibly because it become popular only after I learned English. I don't see any reason not to use "from MIT".

Google Ngrams shows that the transitive (1a) in passive voice was commonly formerly used for this, but is now rare, and that the popularity of (1b) is growing. However, the intransitive is generally what is currently used.

enter image description here

I am not going to go into the difference between going to and will in this answer; this difference has been hashed out several times on EL&U. For this sentence, both constructions are fine. The likelihood of graduation is the same for both constructions, and I consider them both acceptable in formal letters.

Related Topic