ORU Among Best in the West
Tulsa, OK – Oral Roberts University is one of the best in the West according to U.S. News & World Report and it’s a 2017 Best College for Veterans.
The 2017 Best Colleges rankings were released today. ORU is No. #44 among universities
in 15 western states. ORU scored well in its retention rate for freshmen with 80 percent
returning for their sophomore year. ORU’s latest enrollment numbers released just
yesterday show our retention rate from last fall to this fall is 83%. The university
can also boast a low student/faculty ratio of 14 to 1 which means students are able
to get more one-on-one attention.
ORU is also recognized by U.S. News & World Report as a best college for military
veterans and active-duty service members. The university ranked #25 among Midwestern
colleges. To qualify for this honor, a school had to be in the top half of its Best
Colleges ranking category and have 20 more fall 2015 enrolled students using GI bill
benefits to fund their tuition and fees.
Aaron Ashworth is one of those veterans who is benefiting from ORU’s excellence in
serving military men and women. Ashworth is a graduate student working on his second
master’s degree through the College of Theology & Ministry. He started as a freshmen
in 2001. He’s been deployed numerous times including in the fall of 2003 when he went
to Iraq as part of the United States’ initial push to overthrow Saddam Hussein and
his current mission as a military chaplain. He says, through it all, he’s been able
to complete his education. He’s taken traditional classes as well as distance, correspondence,
online, weekend format, seminar format and directed study. Ashworth says, while it
took him 12 years to finish his undergraduate degree and now four years as a grad
student,
“ORU has been a great experience for me as I have served our country. They have supported me and made sure I have been able to stay on point with my education as I have served overseas and even state side as I was planting churches.” He says all of this “stems from the kindness and dedication to students that the staff and faculty have shown.”
###