The University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s graduate education program jumped three spots to be ranked No. 40 in the 2019 U.S. News and World Report national rankings that were announced March 20.

Nebraska graduate education programs are housed in the College of Education and Human Sciences. Programs evaluated for this ranking include master’s, specialist and doctoral degrees in the departments of Child, Youth and Family Studies; Educational Administration; Educational Psychology; Special Education and Communication Disorders; and Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education.

“Our graduate education programs have a strong tradition of rigor and quality,” said Beth Doll, interim dean. “The quality is evident throughout our degree offerings, and our graduates are respected leaders in K-12 classrooms, K-12 and higher education administration, school psychology, school counseling, special education, speech language pathology, and early childhood education. Many of our graduate programs are offered online which appeals to working professionals and opens our programs to students across the country.”

U.S. News evaluates graduate programs based on expert opinions about program excellence and statistical indicators that measure the quality of a school’s faculty, research and students. Data for graduate education programs came from surveys of 267 schools granting doctoral degrees. Rankings were calculated based on a weighted average of the following 10 measures: peer assessment score (deans), educational professionals assessment score, acceptance rate, mean Graduate Record Examination verbal scores, mean Graduate Record Examination quantitative scores, student-faculty ratio, percentage of faculty with awards, doctoral degrees granted, total research expenditures, and average research expenditures per faculty member.

A number of Nebraska’s graduate programs in education have been ranked highly by U.S. News.

Nebraska’s Master of Business Administration was also recently ranked among the nation’s best programs by U.S. News and World Report.