TTU Named State’s Highest-Performing Public Univ.

The Tennessee Higher-Education Commission has named Tennessee Tech the state’s highest-performing public university.

TTU President Phil Oldham says the faculty and staff deserve credit for their work in helping produce more and more graduates each year.

“Certainly I was very proud and pleased. It’s taken a lot of effort from the faculty and staff’s part over the last several years to get to this point,” Oldham says. “It’s a culmination of a lot of hard work, and it’s great because the student’s are the ones who benefit from all that.”

Not only does the University receive recognition from the state, but they will also benefit financially as a result of their recent performance.

“The better the outcomes by what the state considers to be important – that’s most notably graduates,” Oldham says. “The more graduates you produce, the higher share of the funding formula you get. So it actually translates into more money and more budget for Tennessee Tech.”

Oldham says the additional funding will be used to help better the university while keeping costs low for students to attend school.

“We have a strategic plan that’s being implemented now. It was developed over the past year with a lot of faculty and staff effort and input,” Oldham says. “The additional funding will help implement a lot of those initiatives. It’s to improve the overall environment for students and also keep that educational experience as affordable as possible.”

TTU reports nearly 8,000 students have received undergraduate degrees within the last four graduating classes since 2015. The school says the last four classes have been the most in school history.