NC State Notches High Rank in Engineering

Students participate in Dr. Andrew DiMeo's Biomedical Engineering Senior Design class in Engineering Building III on Centennial Campus. Photo by Becky Kirkland.

Diverse Issues in Higher EducationNC State appears prominently in the February 23, 2017 issue of Diverse: Issues in Higher Education with two national rankings. In its “Top Producers of African-American Graduates,” the publication lists the top 100 producers of undergraduate and graduate degrees awarded to African-American students in business, education, engineering and social sciences.

With analyses based on research conducted by Dr. Rhonda Vonshay Sharpe, founder and president of the Women’s Institute for Science, Equity and Race, and data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) collected by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, NC State achieved the following rankings for 2015, the most recent data assessed:

Bachelor’s Degrees in Engineering

NC State ranked sixth nationally for bachelor’s degrees awarded to African-American students in engineering, with 59 graduates in 2013-14. The top five ranks went to North Carolina A&T State University, Prairie View A&M University, Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus, Morgan State University and Tuskegee University. Of the top five, only Georgia Tech and NC State are not historically black colleges and universities (HBCU’s).

Master’s Degrees in Engineering

NC State ranked twenty-first nationally for master’s degrees awarded to African-American students with 19 graduates in 2013-14, tied with Cornell University, Southern University and A&M College and Texas A&M University-College Station. Johns Hopkins earned the top ranking with 26 master’s degrees awarded in engineering.

Rankings do not directly correspond to the total number of graduates but are considered along with several other criteria, including the percentage of graduating class and percent of graduates changed from the previous year.

Other Recent Mentions

NC State has appeared in the Diverse rankings two other times during the current academic year. In the July 28, 2016 issue on STEM graduates, the university appeared in the rankings of total minority bachelor’s degrees in engineering and total minority master’s degrees in engineering. In the November 17, 2016 issue of Native American graduates, the university appeared in the rankings of bachelor’s degrees in both engineering and the social sciences.