College of Education Retains Number One SpotMarch 12, 2013

For the third year in a row, U.S. News & World Report has ranked The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Education number one nationally among public university graduate education programs. Also, this is the sixth year in a row that the college has been ranked number one overall in research funding, with research expenditures last year totaling around $61 million.

The College of Education has been the only UT-Austin college or school, of those ranked annually by the magazine, to secure a number one spot.

The 2014 edition of “America’s Best Graduate Schools” ranks the College of Education fourth overall nationally, behind Vanderbilt University, Johns Hopkins University and Harvard University. After The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Education, the next public university to appear on the list is UCLA, which is ranked eighth. The college continues to outrank prestigious private universities such as the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University as well as public peers like the University of California-Berkeley and University of Michigan.

“It’s a testament to the continuing hard work of our faculty and staff that we remain number one among public education graduate programs,” said Manuel J. Justiz, dean of the College of Education. “When U.S. News & World Report began these graduate school rankings, we were 18th among public universities and 27th among public and private universities. The college’s commitment to excellence has been the reason for our steady rise in the rankings over the years, and I would like to thank everyone in our college who’s contributed to this sustained effort.”

The College of Education is one of four colleges and schools (law, business and engineering, in addition to education) at the university that receives annual qualitative and quantitative graduate school ratings from U.S. News & World Report. 

In addition to ranking the entire graduate school, the magazinealso ranks specific education programs within a college or school. Ratings of particular programs are based solely on nominations by deans of other universities, and the nominating deans may choose up to 10 programs that they feel are exceptional in each specialty area.

In this year’s rankings of programs/specialty areas within graduate schools of education, the College of Education ranked:

• third among publics and fourth overall in SPECIAL EDUCATION
• third among publics and seventh overall in ADMINISTRATION/SUPERVISION
• seventh among publics and ninth overall in EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

“We’re very pleased to hear that the Department of Special Education did so well in the rankings this year,” said Mark O’Reilly, department chair. “I think this is because our department boasts a research and teaching culture that is world class, our faculty consistently attract highly competitive research funding, and they’re prolific contributors to the top-ranked academic journals in special education. The faculty also have established a very strong reputation for their cutting edge research on teaching reading and mathematics to children with disabilities and educating children with autism spectrum disorders.

The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Education is a national leader in research and innovation in a wide array of areas, including:

• research-based strategies to reduce the achievement gap
• autism intervention
• preparation of highly-skilled STEM instructors
• training of community college and public school leaders
• implementation of cutting-edge instructional technology techniques
• reduction of childhood obesity
• literacy instruction

—Kay Randall, University Communications, 512-232-3910