by Zeynep Ozdener

With Veteran’s Day just passed, the Military Times magazine just released its annual ranking of colleges that do the most for veteran students.

This year’s list was a little different than previous years, however, because Military Times looked at many more variables than usual when ranking US colleges. Not only did they place great emphasis on each school’s veteran-focused programs, they also considered the level of academic quality, rigor and success. Approximately 600 schools participated in the 150-question survey.

This shows that many more higher education institutions in the United States are tracking the progress of their veteran students since recent years, but it also shows that the majority are still not.

However, at Ohio State, there are over 2,200 veteran students, and since Ohio State was ranked 18th in the list of 74 four-year institutions, clearly veterans are cared about in this institution.

Ohio State was ranked so high because it offers multiple extracurricular and academic programs for veterans, and also keeps track of their progress to make sure that they graduate on time. Ohio State has a graduation rate of 82%, the fourth highest on the Military Times’ list.

Overall, what this ranking shows is that while many schools do give special consideration to the men and women that serve our country, the majority of schools do not. This obviously needs to be remedied, and a ranking system like this could provide a beneficial incentive to many higher education institutions in America to provide more programs and attention to veteran students.