Part-time MBA, Education Programs Shine in Grad School Rankings

U.S. News & World Report also gave high marks to several additional advanced-degree programs.

Monday, March 23, 2020
Hardy Tower at SDSU
Hardy Tower at SDSU

San Diego State University’s part-time MBA program and its College of Education continued to climb in new national rankings of graduate school programs by U.S. News & World Report.

The 2021 U.S. News Best Graduate School rankings, released March 17, maintain years of improvement in expert opinion and statistical indicators of their program quality.

The College of Education is No. 50 in the nation, up from No. 53 in last year’s listings. The part-time MBA program in SDSU’s Fowler College of Business is ranked No. 55, vaulting up from No. 81 last year.

Four other graduate programs all ranked in the nation’s top 50. Three are in SDSU's College of Health and Human Services: speech-language pathology (No. 25), audiology (No. 29) and physical therapy (No. 49). The clinical psychology program in the College of Sciences, conducted with the University of California, San Diego, was ranked No. 33.

The trend for the part-time MBA program is particularly notable, up from No. 118 in the rankings released in 2018 and No. 136 the year before.

Bruce Reinig, Thomas & Evelyn Page Dean (Interim) at the Fowler College of Business, attributed the strong showing to several sources of support. “Through consulting projects, advisory boards, and funded research projects,” Reinig said, “our graduate faculty have consistently engaged the business community and government agencies to help ensure our programs deliver the content and experiences that our students need to succeed.

“We take great pride in seeing our faculty, staff and students acknowledged through the program's continued rise in the rankings,” he said.

The College of Education also has shown a steady pace in the rankings, advancing into the top 50 nationally after rising from No. 54 in 2018 and No. 57 in 2017.

“It’s so gratifying to see our college continue to rise in the rankings," said Y. Barry Chung, dean of the College of Education. "I’m so thankful to our faculty and students, whose excellence in research, teaching and service has significantly grown our national reputation.”

In engineering, SDSU had three graduate programs ranked in the nation’s top 100: aerospace engineering (No. 53, equivalent to last year’s ranking), civil engineering (No. 75, up from No. 89), and mechanical engineering (No. 94, equivalent to last year).

In addition, the School of Public Affairs graduate program was ranked No. 72.

This article has been revised to correct the SDSU colleges associated with the speech-language, audiology, physical therapy and clinical psychology programs.

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