Germanna Recognized as an 'Opportunity' Institution
The designation goes to just 16% of all U.S. colleges and universities.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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The classification of colleges and universities by the American Council on Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Learning may sound like a yawner of a subject and quintessentially higher-ed insider baseball.
And often, it is.
A new announcement from Germanna Community College, however, that the school’s been named one of the nation’s Opportunity Colleges and Universities by Carnegie and ACE packs all the punch of a walk-off grand slam homerun at National’s Park.
In other words, Germanna is playing in the big leagues.
The Carnegie What?
To appreciate this news, it helps to understand what ACE and Carnegie have put together.
The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education® organizes America’s nearly 4,000 colleges and universities by size, award-level focus, and academic program mix.
Traditionally, this system has allowed researchers to compare apples-to-apples when examining schools.
This year, Carnegie and ACE are introducing a new way of examining colleges and universities — the Student Access and Earnings Classification, which “identifies the extent to which institutions provide access to students from lower socioeconomic and historically underrepresented racial/ethnic backgrounds along with the degree to which the institution’s students go on to earn competitive wages in the context of their geographic location.”
This system classifies colleges and universities in six categories:
Germanna Scores Among Best
This new system allows people to better understand how individual institutions perform relative to their peers.
“In 2025, 479 institutions of the total colleges and universities in the country were identified as Opportunity Colleges and Universities,” according to a press release from Germanna, “which is about 16% of all U.S. colleges and universities.”
This means that Germanna is among the best in the nation in creating brighter futures for a broader array of students, many of whom have traditionally been underserved.
The graph below shows the schools that primarily offer associate degrees and includes 1,249 institutions. The vast majority are clumped in the “lower access, medium earnings range.”
Schools that deliver higher access and higher earnings are designated as “Opportunity Colleges and Universities.”
Germanna’s plot is seen below:
“This is extremely gratifying news for Germanna and the communities it serves,” said Dr. Janet Gullickson, president of Germanna Community College, in a press release. “Being nationally recognized as an Opportunity College reflects the College’s commitment to serving all students and the transformative impact we are having on the economic prosperity of our students and region. It reinforces the idea that community colleges like Germanna are the engines of economic mobility and community growth.”
In total, eight Virginia schools were recognized as Opportunity Colleges and Universities:
Advanced Technology Institute - Virginia Beach
George Mason University - Fairfax
Germanna Community College - Locust Grove
Hampton University - Hampton
Longwood University - Farmville
Marymount University - Arlington
Radford University - Radford
Riverside College of Health Careers - Newport News Virginia
Chamberlain University-Virginia - Vienna
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