{"id":163661,"date":"2025-04-25T10:04:06","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T16:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=163661"},"modified":"2025-04-25T10:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T16:04:07","slug":"uccs-earns-top-two-spot-tenth-straight-military-friendly-gold-ranking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=163661","title":{"rendered":"UCCS earns top two spot, tenth straight Military Friendly Gold ranking"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full is-resized\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1200\" src=\"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MFS25\u201326_Top10-1200x1200-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-163662\" style=\"width:210px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MFS25\u201326_Top10-1200x1200-1.png 1200w, https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MFS25\u201326_Top10-1200x1200-1-800x800.png 800w, https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MFS25\u201326_Top10-1200x1200-1-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MFS25\u201326_Top10-1200x1200-1-768x768.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Continued commitment to the success of military-affiliated students has led to the university&#8217;s tenth consecutive Gold distinction in the annual <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militaryfriendly.com\/university-of-colorado-colorado-springs\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Military Friendly schools<\/a> rankings. This year, UCCS achieved its highest-ever ranking, placing second of the overall top ten in the category of Large Public institutions. UCCS was also recognized as a Top Ten Military Spouse Friendly school, placing eighth.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1200\" src=\"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MFS25\u201326_Spouse-1200x1200-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-163771\" style=\"width:210px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MFS25\u201326_Spouse-1200x1200-1.png 1200w, https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MFS25\u201326_Spouse-1200x1200-1-800x800.png 800w, https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MFS25\u201326_Spouse-1200x1200-1-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MFS25\u201326_Spouse-1200x1200-1-768x768.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">UCCS was awarded a Gold ranking in Military Friendly&#8217;s standards in six categories, including academic policies and compliance, admissions and orientation, culture and commitment, financial aid and assistance, graduation and career, and military student support and retention. UCCS also offers scholarships such as the <a href=\"https:\/\/giving.cu.edu\/fund\/heroes-scholarship-fund\">HEROES fund for active-duty military<\/a>. UCCS has been recognized as a Military Friendly school each year since 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Military Spouse Friendly schools\u00a0are noted for instituting policies to address the concerns and needs of military spouses and their families. They have constructed their admissions, retention, career counseling and mentoring programs to help alleviate the difficulties faced by military spouses. They also offer flexible learning options and degree continuation programs that are designed to accommodate deployments and relocation.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Institutions earning the Military Friendly School designation are evaluated using both public data<br>sources and responses from a proprietary survey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Methodology, criteria, and weightings were determined by Viqtory with input from the Military Friendly<br>Advisory Council of independent leaders in the higher education and military recruitment community.<br>Final ratings were determined by combining the institution\u2019s survey scores with the assessment of the<br>institution\u2019s ability to meet thresholds for Student Retention, Graduation, Job Placement, Loan<br>Repayment, Persistence (Degree Advancement or Transfer) and Loan Default rates for all students<br>and, specifically, for student veterans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">UCCS is proud to offer the <a href=\"https:\/\/giving.cu.edu\/fund\/heroes-scholarship-fund\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">HEROES (Hometown Education Resources &amp; Opportunities Empowering Servicemembers) Scholarship<\/a>, established to support active-duty members of the U.S. military enrolled in undergraduate and graduate programs at UCCS. The scholarship supplements the gap between the total cost of attendance and a student&#8217;s military tuition assistance (TA). While TA benefits are available to help active-duty military reach their educational goals, often that financial boost is not enough to cover full tuition. Out-of-pocket costs can be a barrier for students wishing to go to college while fulfilling military obligations and, often, taking care of family members. This scholarship helps broaden access to higher education by bridging the gap between TA benefits and total attendance costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you&#8217;re interested in helping support higher education opportunities for our active-duty military, please consider donating <a href=\"https:\/\/giving.cu.edu\/fund\/heroes-scholarship-fund\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Learn more about student veteran programs at UCCS at <a href=\"https:\/\/military.uccs.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">military.uccs.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Continued commitment to the success of military-affiliated students has led to the university&#8217;s tenth consecutive Gold distinction in the annual Military Friendly schools rankings. <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=163661\" title=\"UCCS earns top two spot, tenth straight Military Friendly Gold ranking\">(More)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":145925,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,49,429,417],"tags":[377,332,79,361,356],"class_list":["post-163661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all","category-campus-announcements","category-distinctive-programs","category-strategic-plan","tag-community","tag-more-news","tag-office-of-veteran-and-military-student-affairs","tag-distinctive-programs","tag-learning-engagement-belonging"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/UCCS-Summer-2018-6080-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mBpJ-GzH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=163661"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164063,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163661\/revisions\/164063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/145925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=163661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=163661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=163661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}