The Chronicle of Higher Education has ranked Salina Area Technical College fifth in the nation among two-year colleges for its graduation rate – moving up from ninth in 2016.

The Chronicle’s annual Almanac, a compendium of statistics about higher education in the United States, is published each August.

Among those statistics is what portion of a college’s students graduate in 150 percent of the “normal time;” three years for two-year colleges and six years for four-year colleges.

Salina Tech’s graduation rate was 76.5 percent, up from 65.1 percent the previous year. The median graduation rate for the 889 two-year colleges tracked by the Chronicle was 22.9 percent; Salina Tech’s graduation rate is more than three times the national average.

Stephani Johns-Hines, Vice President of Instruction at Salina Tech, said she was excited to see both the new ranking and the improvement from the previous year.

“The faculty and staff at Salina Tech are very dedicated to student success in all aspects of their lives – academic, personal and career,” Johns-Hines said. “We have many systems in place to support students in their academic journey as well.”

The college is in the middle of a $250,000 renovation of part of Building ‘A’ for a new Learning Resources Center, which will provide expanded space for tutoring and areas where students can study or work on group projects. The college also recently created a new position of Instructional Coordinator, who will help instructors improve their teaching techniques.