A cumulative grade point average is every graded course you have taken at an institution, weighted by credit hours and averaged. A term average is one term of the same calculation. The cumulative figure is the one an employer, a graduate school and an honours committee read, and it is the one that moves slowly, because each new term is a smaller share of a growing total.
Cumulative against term
A term average answers how a semester went. A cumulative average answers how a degree is going. They diverge quickly: a strong first term makes the cumulative figure hard to move down and a weak one makes it hard to move up, because the denominator only grows. By the final year a single course changes the cumulative average by hundredths, which is why honours candidates watch it from the second year rather than the last.
Why it is slow to move, in numbers
After 60 credit hours at 3.20, a further 15 credit hours of straight A grades lifts the cumulative average to about 3.36, not to 4.0. The same 15 credit hours at the start of a degree would have set it at 4.0 outright. Nothing about that is a rule an institution chose; it is the arithmetic of a weighted mean, and it is the reason advice to fix a low average late is usually optimistic.
What is included, and where institutions differ
Graded courses taken at the institution, almost always. Transfer credit is frequently excluded from the cumulative average while still counting toward the degree, and repeated courses may replace the original grade or be averaged with it. Both policies live on the registrar's page rather than in the grade table, and both change a cumulative figure more than any single grade does.
Questions people ask about cumulative gpa
What does cumulative GPA mean?
The average of every graded course you have taken at an institution, weighted by credit hours. It is distinct from a term or semester average, which covers one period only.
How do I find my cumulative GPA?
It is printed on your official transcript and usually in the student record system. Calculating it by hand means using your institution's own published grade point table, because the tables differ between institutions.
Does transfer credit count toward a cumulative GPA?
Often not. Many institutions count transfer credit toward the degree and exclude it from the cumulative average. The registrar's page states which, and it matters for honours, which usually also require a minimum number of credits earned in residence.