Its great to be able to post some good news:
DATE: January 9, 2018
TO: All Faculty, Staff and Students
FROM: Diana Natalicio, UTEP President
SUBJECT: Top Tier National Research Designation
In 30 years as UTEP’s President, I have had the great pleasure to share good news with the UTEP family on many occasions. Today I am very pleased to announce a milestone that ranks among the most important and exciting of my tenure: UTEP has been elevated to the R1 level in the Carnegie Classification of Higher Education Institutions – the top tier of national research universities! We are among only 130 (4.5%) of the 2,883 four-year higher education institutions in the United States to earn this designation.
This achievement validates UTEP’s success in delivering on our access and excellence mission and speaks to our impact on the educational opportunities, quality of life and economic development across this region. It could not have happened without our outstanding faculty and staff members, the quality of their innovative work, and their success in securing funding to support it.
UTEP’s students and our alumni and friends have also played key roles in moving UTEP’s access and excellence mission forward. To all of you, we express our most sincere appreciation.
The press release below with additional details will be posted on utep.edu today. Please join me in celebrating this exciting news and sharing it with your friends and colleagues.
Go Miners!
elpasospeak 
I don’t want to downplay the accomplishment, but I question whether a university with nearly a 100% acceptance rate and a 39% graduation rate (after 6 years) will really be considered tier 1 in anything by the academic community or potential students. And it raises a bigger question, are states trying to make commuter schools bigger than they need to be? My two degrees at state universities in Florida and Alabama ran about $2k apiece in the 70s/early 80s. Back then smaller schools were highly focused on specific degree programs and there were far fewer state institutions. As state university systems have grown and smaller universities have begun competing with the larger universities in their systems on everything from research status to athletics, tuition raises have skyrocketed. I’ve really got to wonder if the growth in the number of state universities and the investments being made in universities with relatively low academic standards and graduation rates really best serves students.
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This is GREAT NEWS !!!
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