For more than 150 years Penn State has been a leader in higher education, as shown by rankings from those who monitor academe from the outside. Programs in all five departments in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences are consistently rated highly in many rankings, including U.S. News & World Report. Here are a few examples of recent rankings, primarily relating to our academic standing. Both our undergraduate and graduate Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering programs are ranked in the top ten.
U.S. News and World Report Rankings
Graduate Programs
- 4th - Petroleum Engineering (2026)
- 11th - Materials Engineering (2026)
Undergraduate Programs
- 4th - Petroleum Engineering (2026)
- 12th - Materials Engineering (2026)
- 21st - Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs (2026)
Best Global Universities - Subject Rankings
- 48th - Materials Science (2026)
- 38th - Economics and Business (2026)
- 37th - Geosciences (2026)
Online Education - World Campus
- 4th - Graduate Engineering Programs (2026)
- 15th - Graduate Information Technology Programs (2026)
- 25th - Graduate Education Programs (2026)
- 19th - Graduate Business Programs (2026)
- 50th - MBA Programs (2026)
- 38th - Bachelor’s Programs (2026)
Note that specialty rankings are not available in all disciplines at the undergraduate level, and not all disciplines are ranked every year.
QS World University 2026 Rankings by Subject
- 31st - Earth and Marine Sciences (14th among U.S. universites)
- 6th - Mineral and Mining Engineering (2nd among U.S. universities)
- 21st - Petroleum Engineering (3rd among U.S. universities)
- 24th - Materials Science (7th among U.S. universites)
National Science Foundation Research Expenditure Rankings
In the most recent institutional rankings (2024) released by the National Science Foundation of total research expenditures for science and engineering, Penn State ranked 25th nationally in total research expenditures across the board.
