UGA’s graduate programs continue to rank among the best in the nation, according to the U.S. News & World Report’s 2013 edition of America’s Best Graduate Schools. The School of Public and International Affairs ranked fourth among graduate schools of public affairs; the College of Education ranked 38th, up from 46th last year; the School of Law ranked 34th, up one position from last year; and the Terry College of Business ranked 57th nationwide.
“The fact that UGA is consistently ranked highly by a variety of publications for the quality and value of the education provided here is testimony to the talent, hard work and quality of the students, faculty and staff,” said UGA President Michael F. Adams. “The consistently good ranking of our graduate programs bodes well for both the graduates of those programs and the state of Georgia.”
The School of Public and International Affairs ranked fourth among graduate schools of public affairs. At the core of SPIA’s reputation in public affairs is its master of public administration degree program, created in 1966. SPIA is now alone in the fourth position, having surpassed Princeton University with which it was previously tied. The only schools ranked above SPIA are Harvard (No. 3), Indiana University (No. 2) and Syracuse (No. 1).
SPIA also has four highly ranked specialty programs: the specialization in public management administration was ranked second; public finance and budgeting was ranked fifth; nonprofit management was ranked 15th; and the public-policy analysis program was ranked 20th.
Moving up eight positions in the rankings from the previous year, the College of Education tied for the 38th position with the University of Colorado in Boulder and the University of Illinois in Chicago, tied for 29th among public colleges and universities and was fourth among graduate education schools in the South. In subspecialty categories, the college placed in 10 categories: second in student counseling and personnel services; second in vocational and technical education; fifth in elementary education; fifth in higher education administration; fifth in secondary education; 10th in curriculum and instruction; 13th in special education; 19th in educational psychology; 21st in education administration and supervision; and 52nd in speech-language pathology.
While coming in at 34th overall, UGA’s School of Law was ranked among the top 13 public law schools in the nation and among the top three public schools in the Southeast. Each of these rankings was up one position from last year.
The graduate program in the Terry College of Business tied for the 57th with George Washington University, the University of Arizona and the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. In subspecialty categories, Terry College ranked 16th in information systems and 32nd in its accounting program.
Other UGA colleges and schools ranked in the report include the College of Pharmacy at 26th and the School of Social Work at 37th.
Franklin College’s master of fine arts program tied for the 22nd position with five other institutions, up 11 positions from last year. The college’s subspecialty areas of clinical psychology and printmaking were ranked 32nd and seventh, respectively. The department of biological and agricultural engineering in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences ranked 11th in the nation among similar programs.
