Dec. 18, 2019 - CSU Channel Islands (CSUCI) is now ranked 5th out of more than 1,450 entries in CollegeNET’s 2019 Social Mobility Index (SMI).
That’s up 18 from CSUCI’s ranking of 23rd in 2018, which still placed CSUCI among the top 25 in the nation.
Each year, CollegeNET ranks higher education institutions nationwide in several areas, including Social Mobility, which measures how well an institution provides students with the best opportunity to improve their lives, the lives of their families, and ultimately, the quality of life in an entire community.
“This recognition is especially gratifying because transforming lives and families with a quality education here at CSUCI is at the core of what we do,” said President Erika D. Beck, Ph.D. “We support those who may not be able to afford or perhaps never even considered getting a college education because we believe in them and their ability to lead the future of our innovation economy. Watching these students walk out of here with a diploma to a world of new possibilities inspires and benefits all of us.”
CollegeNET considers five variables when putting together the rankings: tuition, percent of student body whose families whose incomes are below $48,000, graduation rate, median salary approximately five years after graduation, and the University’s endowment.
CSUCI graduates have a median starting career salary of $49,800 and report the sixth-lowest average student debt ($18,579) of the top 25 ranked colleges and universities.
The Social Mobility Index has become a critical measurement, redefining the concept that the “best” colleges meant the colleges that had a lot of wealth. According to a comprehensive report on inequality that ran in Science Magazine, the U.S. is now among the developed nations that provides the least amount of economic opportunity. So now, organizations like CollegeNET place more value on institutions working to solve the problem of declining economic mobility in the nation.
The CSU system made a good showing in the 2019 rankings with CSU campuses occupying 15 of the list’s top 25 spots.
CollegeNET’s website stresses that making higher education accessible to more than the most wealthy echelon of society will help shape our future and democracy.
“And that is because college has become the high school of our age,” the website reads. “The higher education degree has become the new high school diploma, an essential requisite for obtaining reasonable employment and achieving economic mobility in the 21st century.”
To view the full report: https://www.socialmobilityindex.org/.