Dixie State University earns national rankings

Dixie State University students study on campus. Dixie State was nationally ranked for the 2016-2017 academic year in categories ranging from campus safety and academics to serving diverse student groups and helping students avoid debt. St. George, Utah, undated | Photo courtesy of Dixie State University, St. George News

ST. GEORGE — Dixie State University has been nationally ranked in categories ranging from campus safety and academics to serving diverse student groups and helping students avoid debt.

“As Dixie State University stays on course with its Dixie 2020 strategic plan and grows from university status to university stature, the university is thriving and people are noticing,” Dixie State President Richard “Biff” Williams said. “We are honored to be nationally ranked in a number of different categories. Everyone with red sand in their shoes knows Dixie is a great place to be, and now the rest of the nation knows it too.”

Highlighting campus safety, Dixie State was ranked as the 26th safest small college/university in the nation by College Choice, an organization that looked at campus and city crime rates for the past three years when determining the rankings.

The ranking takes into consideration institutions’ general crime reports as well as the number of documented hate crimes, violent incidents against women, arrests made and discipline-enforced activities. Dixie State particularly stood out in the Women’s Safety and Anti-Discrimination categories, receiving a 99 percent grade in each of these classifications.

On the academic front, the National Council on Teacher Quality gave Dixie State University an A+ rating for reading instruction in the council’s Landscape in Teacher Preparation report.

Inspecting undergraduate elementary teacher programs in 875 public and private colleges and universities nationwide, the council evaluated programs on five different elements of reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Of the surveyed programs, only 13 earned the highest rating in all key components, putting Dixie State’s program in the top 2 percent.

Additionally, Newsweek ranked SUCCESS Academy as number 31 in its Beating the Odds list. The annual list identifies the 500 public high schools that are the most effective at preparing economically disadvantaged students for college nationwide.

SUCCESS Academy made its way to near the top of the list by helping students graduate with both associate degrees and high school diplomas at the end of their senior years. In Washington County, the early college high school offers its students concurrent enrollment in a Washington County School District high school and Dixie State University.

Addressing the university’s commitment to all student groups, Winds of Change – the communication channel for the American Indian Science and Engineering Society – elected Dixie State as one of the Top 200 schools in 2016-17 for Native American students pursuing degrees in STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Dixie State also ranked as a 2017 Military Friendly School. Awarded by Victory Media, the designation recognizes colleges, universities and trade schools that are doing the most to embrace military students and dedicate resources to ensure the success of veterans, both in the classroom and after graduation.

Another study suggests that students are able to take advantage of Dixie State’s programs and resources without borrowing a lot of money. The study, released by LendEDU, indicates that Dixie State students finish school with less debt than most of their peers nationwide. LendEDU, a marketplace for student loans and student loan refinancing, ranks Dixie State as 37 out of 1,300 colleges in the student loan debt rankings for public four-year colleges and universities.

Dixie State’s low tuition rate greatly contributes to that low student debt rate, Dixie State officials said in a news release. According to the not-for-profit College Board, average in-state tuition at a public institution is $19,548 for the 2016-17 academic year. Dixie State’s in-state tuition and fees for the 2016-2017 school year are $4,839.52.

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