Iowa universities see losses, gains in new U.S. News grad school rankings

IOWA CITY — As competition for domestic and international students surges following pandemic enrollment losses, U.S. News & World Report’s oft-cited rankings continue to hold weight — including for Iowa’s public universities, which in new 2023 graduate program ratings slipped in some areas and made gains in others.

Although not all of Iowa’s public universities ranked in all 23 broad graduate program categories released Tuesday, the University of Iowa lost ground in 10 and improved in 10 — with some rankings emerging as new or becoming irrelevant, like after the UI dropped its full-time MBA in 2019.

Iowa State University dropped in nine of the broad graduate program rankings and bumped up in three. While the University of Northern Iowa, which didn’t rank in 20 categories, made gains in two areas and dropped in one.

“The 2023 edition of the rankings evaluates a variety of graduate programs, including those in the following six popular fields: business, law, medicine, nursing, engineering and education,” according to a U.S. News release, noting “significant differences in the ranking methodologies” for various fields and programs.

“However, one commonality among the rankings for the six major academic disciplines is that they assess both the accomplishments of a school's incoming students and the career outcomes of a school's graduates.”

The UI made gains in education, improving from No. 48 to No. 39; engineering, jumping from No. 84 to No. 73; primary care medicine, climbing to No. 16 from No. 22; along with physics, mathematics, social work, statistics, and public affairs — which made No. 131 from a previously unranked position.

It lost ground in biology, chemistry, computer science, economics and nursing, among other programs.

ISU saw its biggest gains in education and its biggest losses for its full-time and part-time business programs — dropping from No. 50 to 57 and from No. 145 to 151, respectively.

The 2023 publication, for the first time, ranked the country’s best biostatistics programs — and UI made the list at No. 20.

U.S. News’ graduate school rankings are based on two types of data: “expert opinion” and statistical indicators measuring the quality of a school’s faculty, research and students.

This year’s rankings involved statistical surveys of more than 2,150 programs and reputational surveys sent to more than 23,200 academics and professionals in fall 2021 and early 2022.

“U. S. News asked deans, program directors and senior faculty to judge the academic quality of programs in their field on a scale of 1 (marginal) to 5 (outstanding),” according to the publication’s methodology. “To assess academic reputation in business, education, engineering, law, nursing and medicine, U.S. News also surveyed professionals who hire or work with new graduates.”

Statistical indicators used in the rankings include “inputs, or measures of the qualities that students and faculty bring to the educational experience,” and “outputs, or measures of graduates' achievements linked to their degrees.”

Within subcategories of the larger ranked fields, UI and ISU boasted some top — or nearly top — programs, including the UI’s No. 1-ranked physician assistant program and its No. 2-ranked audiology program.

Iowa State’s agricultural and biosystems engineering program ranked No. 2 nationally, behind Purdue University, which it tied with for first three years ago, beat out the following year and then trailed by one-tenth of a scoring point in this year’s rankings.

“Our graduate students are engaged in innovative research on the cutting edge of the discipline — dynamics systems modeling for improving ag machinery design, advanced robotics for field scouting and big data collection, plot and field experiments to design and evaluate new conservation practices, and analytics to improve efficiency and safety in food systems and manufacturing processes, to name just a few areas,” Amy Kaleita, professor and chair of the program, said in a statement.

“We’re excited that the excellence of our students and programs continues to be recognized by our peers in these rankings, but I’m most proud of the great work that our faculty and grad students are doing to serve Iowa and the world through their state-of-the-art research,” she said.

Although UI’s part-time MBA program dropped by one ranking placement to No. 36 from 35, the university touted the program as Iowa’s best for 13 straight years.

“This Iowa MBA is designed so students can move at their own pace, customize their curriculum with five concentrations, and choose the course format that matches their learning style,” UI Tippie College of Business Dean Amy Kristof-Brown said in a statement. “Working professionals require persistent improvement in their skills, and this program meets that need perfectly.”

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