A degree you are still studying for and a degree you walked away from can look identical on a CV, and they need very different lines. The difference sits almost entirely in the dates. Get the dates right and a recruiter reads your history accurately; get them wrong and a respectable record starts to look like a claim you cannot back up.
Two cases, two formats
Before you type anything, decide which case you are in.
- In progress: you are enrolled, you are still earning credits, and there is a realistic finish date. That includes part-time study and a programme you are taking alongside a full-time job.
- Unfinished: you stopped. Maybe you left in the second year, maybe the money ran out, maybe a job offer arrived first. There is no planned completion date.
The grey zone is a paused degree. If you have formally suspended your studies, with an approved leave of absence and a date to return, it can still read as in progress, provided the real dates are visible. If you have not been enrolled for two academic years and have no plan to go back, it is unfinished. Calling it "in progress" at that point is the kind of stretch that falls apart the moment an interviewer asks when your next exams are.
Writing an in-progress degree
The rule is simple: an in-progress degree carries an expected completion date, never a bare end year. A lone year next to a degree title reads as "awarded", and nobody scanning a CV in twenty seconds will stop to wonder whether 2027 is in the future. Plain lines work best:
BSc Computer Science, University of Leeds
September 2023 to present. Expected June 2027
Or, for a postgraduate course:
MSc Data Analytics (part-time), The Open University
Started October 2024. Expected graduation: December 2027
"Expected" is the word doing the work. "Anticipated" and "due" are fine too. What you should avoid is "2023 to 2027" with no qualifier, which is exactly how a finished degree is written.
Part-time or alongside work
Say "part-time" in the degree line if it is. It explains why a master's takes three years instead of one, and it turns a potential question into a quiet strength: you are working and studying at the same time. If your job and the degree overlap on your timeline, a recruiter will see both sets of dates and do the maths. Better that one word answers it for them.
If you are studying through your employer, an apprenticeship degree for example, name the arrangement once ("degree apprenticeship with Company X") and let the job entry carry the rest.
Credits and modules
List modules only when they are relevant to the role. A student applying for a junior finance job gains something from "Relevant modules: Corporate Finance, Econometrics, Financial Reporting". A marketing manager with six years behind them does not need a module list at all.
Credits help when you are far enough in that the number tells a story. "240 of 360 credits completed" is concrete. "Year 2 of 3" does the same job in fewer characters. Pick one, not both.
Grades so far
If your running average is strong, include it: "Current average: 68% (on track for a 2:1)". If it is not, leave the grade off. Nobody expects a predicted classification from someone halfway through.
Writing an unfinished degree
This is where most people either overstate or hide, and neither helps. The honest line names the institution, the field and the dates you attended, then says what you completed. It never uses the degree title as though you hold it.
Compare these two.
Wrong:
BA Economics, University of Manchester, 2018 to 2020
Right:
Economics (BA programme), University of Manchester
Attended 2018 to 2020. Completed first and second year, 240 credits
The second version gives a recruiter what they actually need. You studied economics at university level for two full academic years and you passed them. That is real education. It just is not a degree, and the line does not pretend otherwise.
Other ways to phrase the completed part:
- "Completed 120 credits toward a BSc in Nursing"
- "Coursework in Mechanical Engineering, 2019 to 2021 (two years completed)"
- "Studied Law, 2016 to 2017. Modules passed: Contract Law, Criminal Law, Legal Systems"
Notice the verbs: attended, completed, coursework in, studied. They state the truth without drawing a circle around it.
The honesty line and the ATS question
Degree verification is routine in a lot of hiring. Screening firms contact the university or a verification service, and the answer comes back as a plain yes or no. If your CV says "BA Economics, 2020" and the check says "no award", you have not just lost the offer. You have given the employer a reason to doubt everything else on the page. Offers get withdrawn over this, and people get dismissed for it months after starting.
The application form is the other trap. Many applicant tracking systems open with knockout questions, and a common one is some version of "highest qualification completed". Answer it truthfully. If you have A-levels plus two years of university, your highest completed qualification is the A-levels. Some forms offer "some university, no degree" as an option; use it when it exists.
It feels risky, because a knockout question might filter you out. But the form and the CV do different jobs. The form captures the fact; the CV carries the context. If a role genuinely requires a completed degree, stretching the truth on the form only delays the rejection until the verification stage, when it costs you far more.
An in-progress degree gets an expected date. An unfinished degree gets the dates you attended and what you completed. Neither ever gets a bare end year beside the degree title.
Should you explain why you stopped?
On the CV, almost never. A CV is not the place for "left due to family circumstances" or "paused for financial reasons". The line with dates and credits is enough, and adding a reason pulls the eye toward something you have already handled.
If the reason matters to the application, one sentence in a cover letter is plenty: "I completed two years of an engineering degree before joining my family's business full-time in 2021." In an interview, keep it just as short and move straight to what you did next. Recruiters ask about unfinished degrees mostly to see whether you are comfortable with the answer. Ten calm seconds passes that test.
The one exception is when you are going back. If you have re-enrolled or have a confirmed return date, the degree has switched cases, and it gets an expected completion date like any other in-progress degree. Update it the week the enrolment is confirmed, not when the term starts.
When to drop it entirely
An unfinished degree is not a debt you owe every future CV. Leave it off when:
- It adds nothing to the role. One term of a chemistry degree in 2009 does little for a sales director application.
- It is long ago and you have a decade or more of experience. Your work history is the evidence by then, and a half-degree from fifteen years back raises a question nobody needed to ask.
- It crowds out something more current, such as a recent professional certification.
Keep it when it would otherwise leave the education section empty, when the subject is directly relevant, or when it explains a stretch of your timeline. "Studied Economics, 2019 to 2021" is a better answer to "what were you doing then?" than blank space. The general rules for the rest of the section (order, what to cut, how much detail) are the same as for any education entry; the only special treatment is the dating.
Whatever you decide, keep your LinkedIn education entry consistent with the CV. Recruiters compare the two, and a tool like Postulit, which turns a LinkedIn profile into a CV, will carry across whatever your profile says. If LinkedIn shows "2018 to 2020" beside a degree title with no qualifier, fix it there first.
A ten-minute check before you send
Read your education section and ask one question of each line: could a stranger mistake this for a completed degree? If the answer is yes and you have not finished, add "Expected" with a month and year, or rewrite the line around "attended" and "completed". Then open the application form and make sure your "highest qualification" answer says the same thing. Once the dates, the CV and the form tell one story, the degree question stops being a risk and becomes a line nobody thinks twice about.