Virginia Tech fared well against other Virginia public schools in first-year student retention rates and job placement, according to a recently released poll.
The poll, released Oct. 11 by the non-profit American Institutes for Research and Matrix Knowledge Group, broke down graduation rates along several categories nationwide. The study included 15 Virginia public colleges and universities.
According to the report, Tech has a 77.5 percent graduation rate, coming in fourth among public schools in Virginia behind the University of Virginia, William & Mary, and James Madison University. Tech was third in first-year retention rate with 91 percent of students returning for their second year in Blacksburg.
One important aspect of the report is the ratio of student loan payments to earnings per recent graduates, which is a measure of the median starting pay for graduates. The median starting pay for a Tech graduate is $52,000. This is in the 94th percentile among all colleges and the 97th percentile among public colleges.
Tech held the lowest student loan default rate, with only 0.7 percent of students defaulting on loans. UVa is fourth with 1.5 percent and JMU is in fifth with a 1.7 percent loan default rate.
Compared with other states, Virginia comes in third in the country for overall graduation rate behind Delaware and Vermont. Virginia schools also ranked first nationwide for first-year retention rate, with 86 percent.
A version of this article appeared in the Oct 27 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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