The University of New Mexico was ranked No. 196 in the Best National Universities in the 2022 U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Rankings released today. The ranking includes more than 390 surveyed institutions and marks the second year in a row UNM was ranked among the top-200 in the nation.
“UNM is pleased to be nationally recognized for the excellence of our academic programs,” said James Holloway, UNM provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs. “Our faculty, staff, and students all work hard to create new knowledge, develop new creative cultural artifacts, develop the minds of learners, and provide service and patient care of all of New Mexico. It’s their work as scholars and teachers that leads to this recognition.”
In addition, in a new category this year, Top Nursing Schools for undergraduates, UNM was ranked No. 43 out of nearly 700 nursing schools surveyed placing it among the top six percent of all bachelor of science in nursing programs in the nation. To be ranked, an institution's nursing school or department offering a BSN degree must have met criteria including accreditation at the bachelor's level by either the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education or the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing, and a regionally accredited institution that awarded at least 35 BSN degrees according to 2018 the IPEDS Data Center.
The first-ever Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) rankings are based solely on the judgments of deans and senior faculty members of nursing schools and departments at institutions around the country who were asked to rate the academic quality of peer institutions' BSN programs using a five-point scale with five being the highest. Average peer assessment scores for each nursing program were then determined by computing a trimmed mean (eliminating the two highest and two lowest scores). UNM had a peer assessment score of 3.8 to earn its ranking.
“This recognition is the culmination of three years of intense effort by all of our faculty and staff to produce the highest level of clinicians and scholars for the state and the nation,” said Christine E. Kasper, dean, UNM College of Nursing. “We are dedicated to continuing to innovate the discipline of nursing to create cutting edge health care delivery for all New Mexicans, with an emphasis on rural and underserved populations.”
Overall, UNM had six additional programs/schools ranked among the top in the nation. UNM was listed No. 96 for undergraduate engineering and is the only engineering program in New Mexico to rank in the top 100. More than 200 doctoral-granting programs across the nation were ranked. The U.S. News rankings of undergraduate engineering programs are based on the opinions of deans and senior faculty at peer institutions from a survey distributed in spring 2021.
“UNM Engineering is consistently ranked in the top 100 of all the undergraduate engineering programs in the country — public and private — as well as continuing to rank as the best engineering program in the state of New Mexico,” said Christos Christodoulou, Jim and Ellen King Dean of Engineering and Computing.
Other top performers recognized this year include top public schools (No. 99), social mobility (No. 113), computer science (No. 122), Veterans (128) and business schools (No. 143). Statewide, UNM has the best national rankings among New Mexico universities including the categories of best university, undergraduate nursing, top public school, undergraduate and graduate engineering, Veterans and business schools.
For the past 37 years, U.S. News & World Report has produced the Best Colleges rankings evaluating this year more than 1,400 colleges and universities on up to 17 measures of academic quality. Schools in the National Universities category offer a full range of undergraduate majors, plus masters and Ph.D. programs. The list compares bachelor’s degree-granting institutions and rates them based on outcomes, faculty resources expert opinion, financial resources, student excellence, and alumni giving.
“This ongoing recognition of the quality of academic programs at UNM by U.S. News & World Report and other organizations is great to see,” said Dan Garcia, vice president for Enrollment Management. “It’s additional information that prospective students can use to help their decision to attend UNM.”
For more information, including methodology, visit US News Best Colleges.