The release of America's Colleges 2027 by U.S. News & World Report on Tuesday is easily the story of the week as the guide placed CSU in its "National Universities" category for the first time ever. Brad Raizner, the founder of Portal, has taken a deep dive into this year's ranking results and has come away so far with six huge takeaways. First , within the top 200 institutions, private universities were twice as likely to rise in the rankings as public universities. Second , among the top 200 institutions, the average rising private university rose nearly twice as many spots as the average rising public university. Third , the rankings formula removed the graduate debt criterion, which constituted 5%, and replaced it with an earnings by major criterion. As Raizner concludes, this reduces the incentive for universities to graduate their students with less debt. This change will not likely benefit CSU as it likely performed relatively better on the graduate debt...
CSU Registrar Stephanie Speer recently announced a major change coming to CSU's commencement season. Beginning this semester, CSU graduate students will have their own commencement ceremony occurring on the same day as ceremonies for undergraduate students. On Friday, December 14, 2026, students receiving graduate certificates and degrees from any Columbus State University college, including master’s, specialist, and doctoral degrees, will enjoy their own commencement ceremony beginning at 4:00pm. Graduate students will attend only this ceremony and not both this ceremony and their college’s ceremony (unless also receiving an undergraduate degree or certificate). Faculty advisors will hood doctoral degree graduates during the ceremony, while college deans will hood master’s and specialist degree graduates. This ceremony replaces the Graduate Hooding Ceremony usually held on the Thursday evening before our Friday Commencement ceremonies. "The compelling benefit of restructuring...