SUNY Oneonta Among 14 Colleges

On Money’s Fastest-Improving List

ONEONTA – SUNY Oneonta is one of 14 colleges and universities named to a new MONEY magazine list of public schools that stand out as “the most rapidly improving high-value colleges in the nation.”

In the MONEY analysis, SUNY Oneonta was singled out for having an above-average graduation rate, for raising its graduation rates for all students by at least 10 percent from 2003 to 2013, and for reducing achievement gap disparities among races over that time.

Today, 58 percent of freshmen at public colleges earn bachelor’s degrees within six years, according to MONEY. At SUNY Oneonta, that rate is 70 percent.

To come up with the list, MONEY analyzed data from a recent study of college graduation rates by the Education Trust, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit advocacy organization. The study found that most colleges have raised their graduation rates during the last decade, and public colleges have improved the most. However, many schools still have not narrowed longstanding disparities in graduation rates between white and minority students.

In December, the Education Trust recognized SUNY Oneonta as one of 26 public colleges and universities across the country that have had the biggest improvements in graduation rates among African American, Latino and Native American students. From 2003 to 2013, the college’s average three-year average graduation rate for minority students increased by 23.1 percentage points.

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