04/30/2025
SUNY Cortland is one of the nation’s highest-value universities, offering an affordable education that leads to good-paying careers, according to the latest rankings from the American Council on Education (ACE) and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
The university was one of 479 schools across the country — about 16% of the total schools ranked — named Opportunity Colleges and Universities. The designation also marks Cortland as a Higher Access, Higher Earnings institution that can serve as a model for fostering student success.
“The majority of students apply to college with the hope it is a path to opportunity, and the job they’ve dreamt about,” said Timothy F.C. Knowles, president of the Carnegie Foundation. “This work is about ensuring that institutions are recognized when they empower students to reach their goals and succeed.”
Median earnings data eight years after entry to Cortland for undergraduates who received federal financial aid was calculated at $56,579, compared to a national average of $34,410. About 21% of those Cortland students were from underrepresented groups.
Cortland has also gained recent recognition by U.S. News, placing No. 17 in their Top Public University in the North ranking for 2025, and by College Factual, which included the university in its 2025 list of the top 10% of the nation’s best colleges.
“Being named a university of opportunity is one of the best ways to describe SUNY Cortland,” said President Erik J. Bitterbaum. “For more than 150 years, our campus has helped graduates reach their greatest potential and make a difference in their chosen professions. Access, affordability and excellence have long been institutional hallmarks, and they continue to define the educational experience that students discover at SUNY Cortland.”
The Carnegie Classification framework was created in 1973 to support research and policy analysis within higher education. The most recent version of the system measures schools in ways that include their size, the types of degrees they award and the fields of study in which students receive their degrees.
Data collected by ACE and the Carnegie Foundation included statistics from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard and the U.S. Census Bureau.
Institutions are measured on student access, defined by the number of Pell Grant recipients and students from underrepresented backgrounds, as well as on students’ post-attendance earnings eight years after enrollment.