Cal Poly Pomona is among the nation's best for first-year student retention among universities with student admission rates above 50 percent, according to a new listing by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The university ranked No. 30, with 89 percent of Pomona's first-year, full-time, undergraduate students in fall 2015 returning to campus for the 2016-2017 academic year.

While The Chronicle of Higher Education notes that, "Colleges that enrolled high percentages of Pell Grant recipients…tended to do worse on retention than did colleges with low percentages, Cal Poly Pomona made the list with 43 percent of its freshman class receiving Pell Grants."

"We are very proud of this ranking and our students' dedication to their education," said Terri Gomez, associate vice president for student success. "We are working hard to help our students be even more successful with the recent hiring of more advisors, added sections for impacted courses and streamlined student services."

In the top three spots for student retention were the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the University of Georgia and Ohio State University. The only other California schools in the top 30 were the UC Riverside at No. 20 and the UC Santa Cruz at No. 25.