Rankings and Recognitions

As Michigan State University advances knowledge and transforms lives through innovative academic programs, research, and outreach, the university is recognized internationally as a top research university and leader in international engagement.  

University-wide distinctions

  • Students walking through the W.J. Beal Botanical GardenMSU is one of the nation’s top five campuses for sustainability, according to the National Wildlife Federation’s Campus Environment 2008 Report Card. The report also indicates that MSU has the greatest number of exemplary programs in sustainability  among colleges and universities in Michigan.
  • For the third year in a row, MSU leads the nation in study abroad participation among public universities. MSU is one of only four public universities in the nation that ranks in the top 10 for both study abroad participation and international student enrollment, according to “Open Doors 2007,” the annual report on international education released by the Institute of International Education.
  • MSU’s residential college, study abroad, and service-learning programs are listed among U.S. News & World Report’s “Programs to Look For” in the magazine’s rankings of America’s Best Colleges 2009. The programs are noted as “outstanding examples” of programs linked to student success.
  • U.S. News & World Report’s 2009 edition of “America’s Best Colleges” lists MSU among the best national universities in the following categories: Economic Diversity; Campus Ethnic Diversity; Freshman Retention Rate; and Most International Students.
  • MSU students studying abroad in PeruU.S. News & World Report’s latest list of "America’s Best Colleges" ranks MSU 30th among the nation’s public universities. The publication consistently ranks MSU among the top 100 national universities in its annual rankings.
  • MSU has been recognized for six consecutive years as one of the top 100 universities in the world by Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Institute of Higher Education in its annual Academic Ranking of World Universities. And, MSU was ranked number 62 in a Newsweek/MSNBC 2006 ranking of the Top 100 Global Universities—selected for openness and diversity, as well as distinction in research.
  • MSU is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities, a group of only 60 U.S. and 2 Canadian universities widely regarded as among the top research-intensive institutions in North America. 
  • The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 2007 selected MSU as one of the first universities to be designated as a “community-engaged university” using its new Community Engagement Classification, which recognizes curricular engagement, as well as outreach and partnerships.
  • Professor Joan Rose conducting water researchMore than 13,800 MSU students were engaged in service-learning activities during the 2006–07 academic year, working with 375 community-service organizations and agencies. MSU offers 300 courses that include a service-learning component.
  • MSU is the only university in the country with three on-campus medical schools, graduating allopathic (M.D.) and osteopathic (D.O.) physicians, as well as veterinarians. As the university extends the College of Human Medicine and the College of Osteopathic Medicine to new areas of the state, it is increasing enrollment, and by 2010, MSU will be among the largest universities in the United States in terms of the number of medical school graduates. 
  • MSU continues its outstanding record of students earning prestigious national and international scholarships with the naming of 3 Goldwater, 2 Udall, 1 Truman, and 1 Hollings scholars in 2006-07. The total scholarship count at MSU now stands at: Goldwater, 24; Rhodes, 16; Churchill, 15; Truman, 15; Marshall, 13; Udall, 8; Hollings, 4; Gates, 2; and Mitchell 1. MSU’s record of Rhodes Scholars has led the Big Ten for 25 years.
  • MSU is the fifth largest producer overall of Peace Corps volunteers since the corps was founded in 1961, according to 2008 Peace Corp rankings.

The 2009 editions of U.S. News & World Report’s "America’s Best Colleges" and "America's Best Graduate Schools" feature the following program rankings:

  • MSU’s Eli Broad College of Business ranks 25th among the nation’s business schools, with five undergraduate business specialty programs receiving top national rankings in their categories:
    • Supply chain management ranks No. 2 in the nation.
    • Production/operations management ranks ninth in the nation.
    • Accounting ranks No.10 in the nation.
    • Management ranks 11th in the nation.
    • Marketing ranks 15th.
  • MSU’s graduate programs in elementary and secondary education rank No. 1 in the nation for the 14th year in a row. The College of Education is ranked 14th in the nation for the fourth consecutive year, with seven specialties ranking in the top eight within their classifications:
    • Young students in a classroomThe graduate program in rehabilitation counseling ranks first in the nation.
    • The curriculum and instruction graduate program ranks second in the nation.
    • The graduate program in higher education administration ranks fourth in the nation.
    • Educational psychology’s graduate program ranks fifth in the nation.
    • The graduate program in education policy ranks eighth in the nation.
  • MSU’s industrial/organizational psychology graduate program ranks first in the nation in its specialty area. The program is in the College of Social Science.
  • MSU’s graduate program in nuclear physics is ranked No. 2 in the nation, behind only the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The university’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory is the nation’s premier rare isotope research facility.
  • The graduate program in supply chain/logistics in the Eli Broad College of Business is ranked second in the nation.
  • Medical students practice a variety of techniques on a mannequinAmong medical schools, MSU’s College of Osteopathic Medicine is ranked seventh in the primary care category, along with four universities, including Harvard. Since 2000, the osteopathic college has ranked among the top 10 percent of all medical schools nationally and was recognized for its commitment to quality care by the state of Michigan.
  • MSU’s graduate program in criminology ranks seventh in the country.
  • The College of Veterinary Medicine ranks ninth in the nation.
  • The College of Human Medicine ranks 22nd among the nation’s medical schools.
  • MSU’s graduate program in political science ranks 22nd in the nation.
  • The graduate program in social work in the School of Social Work is ranked 30th among approximately 190 such programs in the United States.
  • The biological sciences graduate program ranks 34th in the nation.
  • MSU’s graduate program in chemistry is ranked 36th in the country.
  • The Eli Broad College of Business ranks 40th among the nation’s business schools.
  • The clinical psychology graduate program is ranked 42nd in the nation.
  • MSU’s graduate program in nursing ranks 47th in the country.
  • The graduate program in the College of Engineering is ranked 59th in the nation.
  • Psychology’s graduate program ranks 66th in the nation.

Additional top academic programs, centers, and initiatives

  • In 2007, MSU launched the first doctoral program in Chicano/Latino studies in the Midwest —and only the second in the nation. The interdisciplinary graduate degree is offered by the College of Social Science.
  • MSU students in a forensic labThe Media and Information Studies Ph.D. program in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences was ranked second in the category of mass communication by the Chronicle of Higher Education.
  • MSU's Department of Computer Science and Engineering has been ranked 18th in the nation among all computer science graduate programs in an article published in the June 2007 issue of Communications of the ACM—the flagship magazine of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
  • Michigan State University’s student radio station—WDBM-FM—was named the college radio station of the year by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters and Broadcast Music Inc. in 2008 and for the eighth time in the last nine years.  
  • MSU’s High Performance Computing Center ranks No. 43 on the Green500 List of the world's most energy efficient supercomputers.
  • MSU is one of only four universities across the country asked by the Carnegie Annenberg, Rockefeller, and Ford foundations to take part in the "Teachers for a New Era" initiative, which is designed to strengthen K-12 teaching by developing state-of-the-art programs in teacher education.
  • MSU will be the home of a new world-class art museum focusing on modern and contemporary art thanks to a gift of $26 million from philanthropist and MSU alumnus Eli Broad and his wife, Edythe. The 41,000-square-foot Broad Art Museum, which will be designed by renowned architect Zaha Hadid of London, will be built on Grand River Avenue near the Collingwood entrance to the MSU campus.
  • The MSU College of Nursing has earned accreditation for its nurse anesthesia program, which will allow it to become the fifth such program in the state and help address a shortage in a critical area of health care. The initial accreditation was awarded by the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational programs.
  • MSU has the leading and largest faculty of African Studies in the nation, producing more Ph.D. dissertations and conducting more development work in Africa than any other university. The faculty of the center, with the third largest U.S. library on Africa and offering 30 African languages, conducts almost two-thirds of all MSU research and development work abroad in Africa, addressing issues of hunger, malaria, HIV, education, communication, and environment.
  • MSU is the only nonmilitary institution that uses the U.S. Department of Defense’s “Dynamic Distributed Decision-making Simulation” (DDD) for both teaching and research.
  • StudentsMSU was the first major university in the United States with a dean of international programs. More than 1,000 faculty members are involved in international research, teaching, and service projects and programs.
  • MSU’s music therapy program, established in 1944, was the first of its kind in the world designed specifically to train music therapists and has a 100 percent placement rate for Ph.D. graduates.
  • Because of the success of MSU’s background check system developed for long-term care facilities in Michigan, it is being used as a model for the rest of the country in legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate.
  • MSU is partnering with the University of Wisconsin–Madison in establishing the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center with $125 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy.
  • MSU is the leader in a research project funded by a $10 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Homeland Security to create the Center for Advancing Microbial Risk Assessment, a consortium of scientists from seven universities with expertise in quantitative microbial risk assessment methods, biosecurity, and infectious disease transmission through environmental exposure.
  • MSU has joined with the University of Notre Dame and the University of Chicago to establish a Physics Frontier Center for Nuclear Astrophysics funded by a five-year $10 million National Science Foundation grant.
  • MSU’s Diagnostic Center for Population and Animal Health, which was established in 1973, has become one of the country’s premier and busiest veterinary diagnostic laboratories. From just over 9,700 submissions when it first opened, it has grown to about 170,000 submissions and more than 1.2 million diagnostic tests per year.
  • As Michigan’s land-grant institution, MSU is home to the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, which funds the research of more than 300 scientists on campus in five colleges: Agriculture and Natural Resources, Natural Science, Engineering, Social Science, and Veterinary Medicine. MAES also includes a network of 14 field research stations across the state.
  •  MSU, along with other members of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), announced a collective agreement to digitize select collections across all its libraries, to as many as 10 million volumes, as part of the Google Book Search project. The CIC is the academic consortium of 12 major teaching and research universities that, in addition to Michigan State University, includes, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois, Indiana University, the University of Iowa, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.