Student Achievement

Your Success is Our Success

The success of students is important to Charleston Southern University. The university sets goals and tracks student success various ways. As a review of the university’s Strategic Plan shows, the university has set significant goals in terms of student success, retention, engagement, and graduation.

National Licensure Exams

One of the ways Charleston Southern University tracks student success is through their success rates on National Licensure exams. The most recent results are posted below. CSU’s goal is to achieve 100% on each exam.

Program and Exam	Passing Rate 2016-17	Passing Rate 2017-18	Passing Rate 2018-19	Passing Rate 2019-20	Passing Rate 2020-21	Passing Rate 2021-22	Passing Rate 2022-23
Education Undergrad – Praxis II	98%	95%	93%	88%	88%
Nursing BSN – NCLEX	94%	98%	95%	99%*	100%*	97%*
Athletic Training M.AT – BOC	86%	88%	100%*	100%*	100%*
Music Therapy BS CBMT Cert. Exam	100%	100%*	100%*	100%*	100%*	78%
PA Program (PANCE)	Program began in Jan. 2018; first cohort graduated 2019. Cohorts graduate in December.	–	100%*	100%*	100%*	100%	97%

Wildly Important Goals: Improve Retention and Graduation Rates

Charleston Southern University’s prime competitive benchmarks are to match and then exceed the mean and the median rates for the South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities (SCICU). The next goal for retention is to achieve 75%.

Upon passing these goals in the disaggregated categories shown below, the university will work toward matching and then exceeding the universities on CSU’s Comparison and Benchmark list and the subset of Benchmark universities by themselves (aiming for the higher standard in all cases). 

Upon achieving these goals, the University will ascertain the next appropriate benchmark. Note that all data for SCICU and Benchmark derives from publicly available Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) data and is often a year to two years behind for other institutions. Because of the many challenges which face the modern college student, including academic, financial, and personal challenges, the National Center for Education Statistics now tracks graduation rates through 8 years rather than 4, accounting for students who drop out briefly, and then drop back in, or who go part-time for a while, and then become full-time again.

As a brief survey of CSU’s student body shows, the university hosts a large number of first-generation students and Pell Grant and federal aid award receiving students. Many of these students need to work and have to balance the many challenges of life with staying a student, and as a result graduating in four years is often not possible. Despite these challenges, CSU is dedicated to improving the university’s graduation rates. CSU’s goals are, again, based on the graduation rates of similar institutions.

	1st Year Retention (3-year average for CSU)	4-Year Graduation Rate	6-Year Graduation Rate	6-Year Completion Rate (Bachelor’s Degree Completions)
CSU	68%	38%	49%	60.3%
SCICU Median Rate	70%	41%	52%	N/A
SCICU Average Rate	68%	41%	51%	N/A

How Does CSU Work to Make This Happen?

• Group tutoring in difficult math and science subjects such as MATH 110, 111, 130, CHEM 121 and 122, and BIOL 226 and 227. For more information, reach out to the chairs of these departments!
• The Bridge Program
• Student Success Center
• Diversity Council
• Call Me Mister
• Math Help Center
• Writing Center

Dean’s List

Part of promoting success at Charleston Southern entails promoting our excellent students.  A student has to have a 3.5 GPA to place on the Dean’s List at Charleston Southern.  The numbers of students achieving this difficulty academic goal are listed below.

Academic Year	Fall	Spring	Total
2013-14	636	671	1,307
2014-15	673	680	1,353
2015-16	776	782	1,558
2016-17	855	814	1,669
2017-18	901	874	1,775
2018-19	919	869	1,788
2019-20	872	975	1,847
2020-21	883	843	1,726
2021-22	851	795	1,646
2022-23	924	878	1,802
2023-24	971