ORLANDO, Fla. — The University of Central Florida has reached its highest four-year graduation rate in more than a decade.
Monday morning, the college announced it has received the State of Florida’s highest designation for universities, Preeminent Research University.
This means the school has reached rigorous academic and research standards.
The school had to meet 12 criteria to receive the designation. This milestone is allowing for more notoriety and more funding.
“It helps students know who we really are,” Ryan Goodwin with UCF’s Student Success and Wellbeing, said. “It helps families know who we really are. I think that allows us to recruit great students, recruit great staff members, and recruit great faculty members and keep them here.”
UCF President Alexander Cartwright said that excelling in research programs and notable patent generation has helped with this new title. In addition, the school reached a four-year graduation rate of at least 60%; UCF hit 63.8%. That’s a 14-point increase in four years.
“UCF is also a very innovative institution,” President Cartwright said. “We are the institution that has proven we can provide an exceptional education, being non-traditional. We’re efficient at what we do. We put all of our dollars towards our students and faculty.”
Cartwright said the goal now is to reach a 70% four-year graduation rate, grow its engineering and technology education, as well as strive to become a top 25 Public Research University.
Students like Robert Hammett said one-on-one academic advising implemented within the last year proves the focus on student success to reach those goals.
“There’s one for job search upon graduation, internships, resume guiding, LinkedIn guiding, I definitely use all of those resources,” Hammett said. “Especially before graduating, getting use of my tuition.”
The Florida Board of Governors is expected to verify these results, which will then be approved by UCF’s board in April. Leaders hope to certify UCF with this designation by June.
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