University of Iowa law, medical colleges steady in national rankings

Amid state and national headwinds unsettling the higher education landscape, new U.S. News & World Report graduate school rankings indicate some of the most dominant and prominent programs across Iowa’s public universities remain strong — or are at least holding steady.

The University of Iowa’s advanced nursing degree program, for example, climbed seven spots from No. 50 last year to No. 43 in the new 2025 rankings made public Tuesday. Likewise, Iowa State University saw its full-time master of business administration program improve from No. 50 to No. 42 based on “career attainment success, student excellence, and qualitative assessments by experts.”

Not all the campuses’ graduate programs improved — with the University of Northern Iowa’s graduate education ranking dropping four spots from No. 186 to No. 190; ISU’s graduate engineering program sliding six spots from No. 43 to No. 49; and the UI education ranking dipping just one from No. 30 to No. 31. But its engineering placement inched up one spot to No. 74.

The U.S. News ranking methodology in recent years has seen meaningful changes following a boycott by top law and medical schools concerned with its reliance on reputation and other potentially biased metrics. Last year, for example, U.S. News stripped its med school rankings of the reputation assessment — a move it maintained in this year’s new edition.

“For the second year in a row,” according to the new report, “there were no peer assessment or professional reputation surveys used in the medical schools rankings,” which no longer are listed numerically but instead grouped into four tiers — with tier one representing the highest performers and tier four the lowest. Even then, some schools declined to participate or complete statistical surveys — leaving them unranked.

The UI Carver College of Medicine — the only ranked medical school in the state — remained at its tier 2 status for programs scoring between 50 and 84 out of 99, according to U.S. News methodology.

The UI College of Law also remained unmoved at No. 36, with Drake University’s law program slipping two spots to No. 84.

“Law school graduates often struggle to find a job that validates the significant time and expense they invested in their education,” according to the rankings methodology. “U.S. News' Best Law Schools rankings are designed to help, as nearly 60 percent of the formula evaluated institutions on successful job placement of their graduates.”

The remaining 40 percent considered faculty resources, academic achievements of entering students and “opinions by law schools, lawyers and judges on overall program quality.”

The UI College of Law received a peer assessment score of 3.3 out of 5 and reported a higher acceptance rate than many on the list, at 60 percent — on par with campuses ranked far lower in the 100s. Out of 200 schools surveyed, 154 responded.

At the same time, the UI law school’s “outcomes 10 months after graduation” — which measures the extent to which graduates obtain in-demand jobs — was 97 percent, among the highest performers on the list.

Looking at how Iowa’s universities fared more broadly and against conference peers, UI ranked in five of the six categories — but no longer has a full-time master of business program to consider. ISU ranked in two of the six and UNI ranked nationally in education only.

Although the UI maintained or improved its performance for most programs, its Big Ten peers often were ranked higher — including education, with 11 of 17 ranking higher; and in engineering, with 14 ranked higher. The UI fell in the middle of the pack for nursing and law.

Only two Big Ten medical schools ranked in the top tier: Ohio State University and the University of California-Los Angeles.

This week’s rankings come as campuses nationwide are grappling with new political mandates, federal funding questions. an enrollment cliff looming and eroding public trust, according to recent polling.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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