Charles Sturt University is a favourite among non-school leavers and its graduates are more employable.
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Those are among the facts revealed by the Good Universities Guide 2019 annual report.
CSU has campuses in Orange, Bathurst, Dubbo, Albury-Wodonga, Port Macquarie and Wagga Wagga.
The Good Universities Guide showed almost 85 per cent of CSU graduates found full-time employment – the highest figure across all universities in Australia.
CSU students were offered a starting salary of $62,000 a year, which is the fifth-highest after the University of Southern Queensland ($63,800), the Northern Territory’s Charles Darwin University ($62,600), CQUniversity ($62,600), based in Central Queensland, and Tasmania University ($62,600).
Christopher Colter, the director at advertising agency UM, said he believed hiring someone from CSU was a safe bet.
“CSU is a priority hunting ground for UM for we know that graduates are not only intelligent and driven, but they’ve been given the real-world practice needed to hit the ground running,” he said.
CSU vice-chancellor Andrew Vann said the results are recognition of the university’s commitment to students and strong industry connections.
“As a university, we are focused on excellence in education and pride ourselves on providing our students with a strong sense of belonging,” he said.
The courses offered at the university’s north Orange site include bachelors of clinical science, dental science, pharmacy, physiotherapy and sustainable agriculture.
The report found that 90 per cent of students at CSU were non-school leavers: those who don’t go to a university straight after Year 12.
It is also possible that such students may have completed or attempted another qualification, entered the workforce, taken time off after school or are mature-age students.
Western Sydney University had the highest (91 per cent) proportion of non-school leavers in the country.
CSU, however, was among the universities with the smallest proportion of undergraduate students studying full-time and on-campus, with a total of about 20 per cent of students pursuing full-time, on-campus study at one of the institution’s campuses.
CSU was among the last three ranked universities in terms of staff qualification, which is the proportion of academic staff who hold a Ph.D, doctorate by research or doctorate by coursework.
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