Office of University Relations

UCCS named a top ten university, engineering program lauded

Date: 2007-08-27

The undergraduate engineering program at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs is among the best in the nation, according to the editors of U.S. News and World Report.

In the 2008 college rankings edition, “America’s Best Colleges,” to be released Aug. 20, the magazine’s editors ranked the UCCS undergraduate engineering program ninth in the nation among public engineering schools offering bachelor’s or master’s degrees. The magazine’s editors ranked all of UCCS tenth among public Western universities.

For the past several years, UCCS ranked in the top tier of all public and private master’s universities in the West. Master’s universities provide a full range of undergraduate and master’s degree programs.

In ranking more than 1,400 colleges and universities, U.S. News relies on quantitative measures that education experts have proposed as reliable indicators of academic quality. Among the measures are student retention rates, graduation rates and class size.

“I am pleased the quality of UCCS is being recognized from a non-partisan and objective point of view,” Chancellor Pam Shockley-Zalabak said. “Rankings serve as a way of highlighting the high-quality and relatively low costs of a public education in Colorado.”

Other top engineering programs at public engineering schools offering bachelor’s or master’s degrees, include the California Polytechnic-San Luis Obispo, U. S. Military Academy, the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Air Force Academy, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, California State University-Pomona, Rowan (N.J) University, San Jose (Calif.) State University, Virginia Military Institute, and California State University, Los Angeles.

Other universities cited as top public universities in the West were: California Polytechnic University-San Luis Obispo, Western Washington University, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Evergreen (Wash.) State College, California State University-Long Beach, California Polytechnic University-Pomona, California State University-Chico, San Jose (Calif.) State University, Sonoma (Calif.) State University, California State University-Fullerton, California State University-Stanislaus, Central Washington University, Eastern Washington University and Texas State University-San Marcos.

The rankings are available on-line at www.usnews.com.

UCCS, located on Austin Bluffs Parkway in northeast Colorado Springs, is the fastest growing university in Colorado, and one of the fastest growing universities in the nation. The University offers 29 bachelor’s degrees, 18 masters’, and four doctoral degrees. The campus enrolls about 7,600 students annually.