Student Achievement
Christopher Newport University is committed to providing educational and cultural opportunities that benefit our students, the commonwealth and the nation.
CNU’s undergraduate and graduate degree programs foster intellectual and professional development, preparing students to lead lives of meaning and purpose. Beyond outstanding academics, the University encourages service and leadership within the community while also providing opportunities to engage in top research and arts programs.
Students and prospective students may find the resources of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) of use in planning for college and careers. SCHEV has created an institutional profile for each Virginia public college and university, and for each independent college or university participating in the Virginia Tuition Assistance Grant Program.
This information has been published in accordance with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges policy. Additional information is available through the Office of Assessment and Accreditation.
Christopher Newport Student Achievement
To measure the student achievement of students at Christopher Newport, the university uses the following key student completion indicators.
The graduation rates of CNU’s freshman cohorts have continued to grow, thanks to various university-initiated strategies. For the purposes of these studies, graduation rates indicate a percentage of the freshman cohort that graduated from Christopher Newport in six years. Christopher Newport’s aspirational goal is to increase our six-year graduate rate to 80%.
The threshold of acceptability, representing the minimum expectation, for Christopher Newport’s six-year graduation rate was determined by taking the average IPEDs six-year graduation rate from fifteen peer institutions. The threshold of acceptability for our six-year graduation rate is 66%.
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Christopher Newport’s goal is to increase our freshman-to-sophomore retention rate to 90%. CNU has implemented several programs designed to increase our freshman retention-rate in an effort to achieve the articulated aspirational goal.
As with the Graduation Rate criterion, the average retention rate of the University’s fifteen peer institutions was used to set the threshold of acceptability. The threshold of acceptability for our freshman-to-sophomore retention rate is 80%.
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Beyond retention and graduation data, Christopher Newport tracks the post-graduation outcomes of every senior class. Six months post-graduation, CNU administers the National Association of Career Educators First-Destination Survey which provides an overall profile of students’ plans – from graduate-school acceptance to employment offers (which are often impacted by the national economy).
Christopher Newport’s goal is to increase the percentage of students with full-time employment or graduate school / continuing education to 95% and decrease the number of students still seeking employment or graduate admission.
Christopher Newport’s threshold of acceptability for FT employment or graduate school/continuing education was developed using the average percentage of students with FT employment or graduate school/continuing education from institutions in our Carnegie Classification (Masters-Small) from 2015 to 2019. Based on the information provided by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), that threshold is 86%.
Christopher Newport provides four Master’s degree programs: Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT), Master of Financial Analysis (MFinA), Master of Science in Environmental Science (MS-ENVS), and Master of Science in Applied Physics and Computer Science (MS-APCS). To measure the student achievement of graduate students at Christopher Newport, the university uses the following key student completion indicators.
Number of Degrees Conferred
Christopher Newport uses the number of conferred degrees as one of its measures for student achievement in graduate studies. The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) monitors the number of degrees offered by Virginia institutions and has set productivity standards for the degrees and disciplines offered across the state. CNU has set these productivity standards as the thresholds of acceptability, representing the minimum expectation, for degree conferral. The aspirational goals are borne from several sources and are specific to each program.
| Master of Arts in Teaching | Master of Financial Analysis | Master of Science in Applied Physics and Computer Science | Master of Science in Environmental Science | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aspirational Goal | 61 | 36 | 13 | 15 |
| SCHEV Productivity Requirement/Threshold of Acceptability | 7 | 7 | 5 | 5 |
| 2026 | 27 | 11 | 11 | 8 |
| 2025 | 32 | 15 | 5 | 10 |
| 2024 | 34 | 24 | 2 | 9 |
| 2023 | 56 | 14 | 7 | 13 |
| 2022 | 47 | 13 | 9 | 14 |
| 2021 | 49 | 18 | 10 | 8 |
| 2020 | 52 | - | 10 | 1 |
| 2019 | 60 | - | 6 | 7 |
| 2018 | 77 | - | 7 | 12 |
| 2017 | 70 | - | 9 | 7 |
*A new program, the Master of Financial Analysis program had its first graduating cohort in 2021