Wealth of opportunity
by Jennifer R. Lloyd (M.B.A. ’16)
When asked how her college experience helped launch her career at USAA, Maryam Khezri’s eager smile belied a long day spent donning her branded blue corporate shirt to help give St. Mary’s University students a vocational lift.
After dedicating hours to the career fair organized by the University’s Career and Professional Development Center in September, Khezri (B.B.A. ’21) remained enthusiastic in her reflections on how access to an excellent education continues to affect her options and earnings years later.
From the Carnegie Foundation to the 2026 edition of U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges guide, St. Mary’s has received multiple accolades in recent months for providing pathways for success to students like Khezri, a first-generation college graduate from San Antonio who received financial aid, including Pell Grants and scholarships, to bridge the gap to afford school, along with parental support.
“The biggest takeaway that I realize now, post-college and in my career, is how St Mary’s taught me to be a teammate, to be a friend and to collaborate with others,” said Khezri, who is now a Product Management Analyst Consultant at USAA.
“The biggest takeaway that I realize now, post-college and in my career, is how St Mary’s taught me to be a teammate, to be a friend and to collaborate with others.”
— Maryam Khezri (B.B.A. ’21)
Paving the way
St. Mary’s has been designated as an Opportunity College and University by the Carnegie Classifications, recognizing the University as an institution that can serve as a model for studying how campuses can foster student success. This classification, published in April, recognizes St. Mary’s for providing higher access to students, which results in higher earnings for graduates.
The Opportunity Colleges and Universities designation is part of a newly developed Student Access and Earnings Classification published in April 2025 by the Carnegie Foundation and the American Council on Education. This new classification examines the extent to which institutions foster opportunities for student success by measuring whether institutions are enrolling students reflective of the communities they serve and how earnings compare to peers in their area.
This year, 479 institutions have been identified as Opportunity Colleges and Universities, which is about 16% of all U.S. colleges and universities that are in the Student Access and Earnings Classification.
Keying in on value
U.S. News & World Report rankings with similar areas of focus quickly reaffirmed this. In September, U.S. News ranked St. Mary’s No. 1 in the West for Best Value Schools for the second year in a row. This ranking reflects that St. Mary’s offers students a combination of exceptional academic quality and affordability, outpacing dozens of universities from Texas to the West Coast.
In recent years, U.S. News introduced the Top Performers on Social Mobility ranking to evaluate how well schools serve underrepresented students, particularly those receiving federal Pell Grants. This year, St. Mary’s ranked No. 12 in the West for Social Mobility, reflecting its commitment to supporting students from lower-income households. The University remains first in San Antonio in this category for the seventh consecutive year.
“Continuing to earn the No. 1 Best Value in the West ranking for 2026 underscores St. Mary’s University’s enduring mission to provide an excellent education that is life-changing for our students,” said President Winston Erevelles, Ph.D. “Guided by 173 years of Catholic and Marianist tradition, St. Mary’s remains dedicated to preparing graduates for meaningful vocations and exceptional careers by equipping them to lead with integrity, innovate in their fields and serve their communities with purpose.”
Seeking holistic success
Students bring their unique backgrounds and interests to campus. St. Mary’s has increasingly been funneling them through college to graduation with the skills they need to succeed, according to data shared by Stephanie Ward, Ph.D., Vice Provost for Student Success and Vocation.
For example, the retention rate between a first-year student’s initial and second years of study at St. Mary’s increased by 7% between Fall 2022 and Fall 2024, she shared.
“Nationally, on average, universities are able to move their retention rate about one and a half to two percentage points annually, year on year,” Ward said at a recent faculty and staff meeting. “It’s pretty phenomenal.”
The six-year graduation rate increased 4% between Fall 2022 and Fall 2023 — among the highest graduation rates in the region.
“The reason that we are seeing the success is because our focus here at St Mary’s Student Success is about so much more than those numbers,” Ward said. “It’s going to be about the whole person.”
Creating careers
In 2019, Khezri was one of those undergraduate students determined to put her best self forward at a career fair offered on campus. The Finance and Risk Management major already knew she wanted to work at USAA. So, she walked up to the USAA table at the fair, struck up a conversation with the representative there and continued the discussion at the campus Starbucks minutes later.
Within days, she’d applied to and interviewed for their internship program. She landed the internship and ended up working for, you guessed it, the same person she met at the career fair.
Fast forward to 2025, and she’s built a career at USAA, being promoted three times by the age of 27. Growing up with a single mother who had immigrated from Iran and started a business instead of attending college, Khezri felt the pressure of being a first-generation college student, determined to capitalize on chances as they came.
Now, she marvels at earning a salary beyond what she would have expected and remains committed to providing similar paths to St. Mary’s students rising after her.
“Any opportunity that I have to come back to St Mary’s, I’m here,” Khezri said. “I owe a lot of my success to this school and the opportunities it gave me.”
