RIVERSIDE, Calif. — The University of California, Riverside has been listed among ten top-performing colleges nationally for Latino student success according to findings released today in Washington, D.C.
The Education Trust, a non-profit think tank based in Washington D.C., looked at 613 public and private four-year colleges nationwide and singled out ten campuses nationwide as models for promoting Latino student success. Rather than ranking schools strictly on national averages, The Education Trust compared institutions of similar size, SAT scores, and number of Pell Grant recipients and then highlighted those campuses with significantly higher than average graduation rates among Latino students. The findings are published in, “A Look at Latino Student Success: Identifying Top- and Bottom-Performing Institutions.
UCR is widely respected as a national model for student success across ethnic and economic categories. According to the most recent national data, the six-year graduation rate for Latino students in the U.S. is 54 percent. The rate at UCR is nearly 20 percentage points higher at 73 percent.
In addition to performing higher than national averages, UCR is one of few institutions nationwide to have eliminated achievement gaps across ethnic groups and income levels. In 2016, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities honored UCR with the prestigious “Project Degree Completion Award” for innovation in improving student success.
“Being named a top-performing institution is a testament not only to our students but also to the faculty and staff across campus dedicated to helping our students succeed,” said UCR Chancellor Kim A. Wilcox. “The disparities in student success are a national crisis in higher education in the U.S. The Education Trust's analysis is critical in identifying the schools like UCR that are moving the needle on graduation rates so that our successes can be emulated across the country.”
In March, The Education Trust released a similar report covering African American student success. UCR was one of just three schools to be named top-performing institutions in both reports.
Founded in the early 1990s, The Education Trust is a national non-profit advocacy organization that promotes academic achievement for students at all levels of the education system, particularly for students of color and low-income students.
Source: Published originally on ucrtoday.ucr.edu, UCR Identified as National Leader for Latino Student Success, by John Replogle, December 14, 2017.