On the one hand, CSU has again topped the rankings for graduate employment with an impressive 86.3 per cent of students who leave CSU finding full-time work within four months.

And CSU ranked seventh on the list of graduate salaries, coming in $3400 above the national average and achieving a better average graduate salary than the more fancied University of NSW, Sydney University and Australian National University.

Naturally, these were the outcomes CSU wanted to highlight when it sent a press release to local media on Tuesday but there was much more to unpack in the fine print.

First, CSU did not rank inside the top 30 Australian universities for overall quality [but nor did Sydney University and University of NSW].

CSU did not rate highly in terms of student demand, was also well down the list for overall experience, had a low ranking for teaching quality and had one of the highest student-to-staff ratios of all the institutions.

So, is this a good news story or bad news story for CSU? Well, that probably depends on what you want from a university.

For many CSU students, it seems, university is simply a means to an end - a bridge between school and work.

Most country kids who go to uni must leave their home and their town to do so.

They do not have the option of living at home while studying, nor even making regular weekend trips home to reconnect with their loved ones.

They must make that major step into adulthood at an earlier age than most kids raised in the major cities and they [and their parents] must take on additional financial burdens to make that happen.

Overall, the country kids must make decisions that shape the rest of their lives at an earlier age and they must be serious about the investment of time and money they put into tertiary study.

Niceties such as "overall experience" come well down the list of criteria; they just want a job when they finish studying.

CSU can never hope to compete with the history, prestige and reputation of the sandstone universities, but it can - and does - give young kids (most often from the bush) a kickstart into adult life.

And if it keeps doing that, then CSU can be satisfied that it is serving Bathurst and regional NSW very nicely indeed.