ABE now perched atop graduate and undergraduate lists

There’s a reason Purdue University’s College of Engineering is not only among the largest but also among the best in the country.

With more than 100,000 living alumni worldwide, more than 10 federally funded centers that have at least $10 million each in research funding, the largest academic propulsion lab in the world in Zucrow labs and real-world experiential learning for its graduate and undergraduate students, Purdue Engineering attracts the top STEM students from around the world.

These strengths show in the rankings.

The U.S. News & World Report on Tuesday (March 30) released its annual rankings of Best Graduate Schools, and for Purdue, it continues to tell a story of success. In fact, even more success.

Purdue’s College of Engineering moved up three spots – from No. 7 to No. 4 – in this year’s rankings and now sits at its highest spot since 1994. It is No. 2 among all U.S. public universities, trailing only the University of California, Berkeley. Purdue shares the fourth spot with the California Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University.

“The 2022 ranking of graduate and research programs puts Purdue Engineering in the country’s top five, as it did last time in 1993-94. This might also be the first time that a college of our size, with 14,000 undergraduate and graduate students and another 3,000 online, has ever reached the No. 4 spot in this ranking,” said Mung Chiang, the John A. Edwardson Dean of the College of Engineering. “It is a reflection of our faculty, staff and students’ success in reaching the pinnacle of excellence at scale.”

Purdue’s Agricultural and Biological Engineering graduate program also continues to soar. It returned from last year’s No. 2 ranking to the top spot this year. That gives Purdue a sweep of the No. 1 spots in both the graduate list and the undergraduate rankings for the program, which were released in September. Purdue’s undergraduate ABE program has held the top spot for a full decade.

“The College of Agriculture celebrates the No. 1 ranking our graduate agricultural and biological engineering program has earned,” said Karen Plaut, the Glenn W. Sample Dean of Agriculture. “I thank our dedicated faculty and staff members, led by Nate Mosier, for their commitment to graduate education and for their advancement of innovative and globally renowned research.”

In other engineering graduate school rankings, aeronautics and astronautics, civil, industrial, and mechanical engineering are all ranked among the top 10 in the U.S., and six of the 12 engineering departments ranked improved their ranking while three stayed at the same spot.

In other rankings:

• Graduate Business: The Krannert School of Management moved a whopping 36 spots – from 80th to 44th. Purdue’s graduate program in production operations moved from fifth to third. Purdue is eighth in supply chain management, ninth in business analytics and 53rd in part-time MBA programs.
• Economics: 49th.
• Graduate Education: Purdue is 51st overall and 26th in education administration.
• In health, humanities and social science categories, Purdue is 31st in nursing, 46th in English, 54th in sociology, 63rd in political science and 73rd in history.

The latest graduate rankings add to a growing list of accolades from the U.S. News annual lists. In September’s rankings for Best Undergraduate Schools, Purdue was listed as the fifth most innovative school in the country.

Purdue is regarded for its persistent pursuit of innovation where people bring their best and learn to build a better world together. Its pillars of affordability and accessibility, online learning, STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) leadership, transformative education and world-changing research support its land-grant mission, as captured in the university’s mantra, “The Next Giant Leap” (see YouTube video highlighting Purdue pillars). The university in December announced its 10th straight tuition freeze.