Colorado State’s College of Engineering Named One of the Nation’s Best by U.S. News & World Report

U.S. News & World Report’s upcoming "Best Colleges" edition ranks Colorado State University’s College of Engineering among the best undergraduate programs in the nation. Colorado State’s engineering college moved up two spots in this year’s rankings and was rated the 57th best engineering program in the country.

"This is good news for Colorado State. The ranking offers the opportunity for more people around the country to become aware of our college’s top-quality academic programs, research, faculty and students," said Neal Gallagher, dean of the engineering college. "I believe our college is consistently one of the nation’s top rated programs because we remain committed to hiring only the most outstanding faculty who place a high priority on undergraduate teaching while also aggressively pursuing cutting-edge research."

Gallagher added that faculty members teach 100 percent of engineering courses and engage students in hands-on research. As a result, the college’s seniors consistently score 10 percent higher on the Fundamentals of Engineering exam than the statewide average.

As part of their coursework, all undergraduate engineering students at Colorado State participate in national design and performance competitions. The competitions test students’ engineering knowledge and skills with real projects indicative of current industry challenges. The success of Colorado State’s undergraduate engineering program is reflected by the number of competitions that its students have won. Recent victories include:

• Undergraduate students from Colorado State’s chemical engineering department took first place at the recent American Institute of Chemical Engineers national Chem-E-Car (chemical powered car) competition.
• Colorado State student teams competing in this year’s national Human Powered Vehicle Competition won first place for design in both the single rider and utility class events and first place overall in the utility class.
• A team of civil engineering students placed first at this year’s e annual American Society of Civil Engineers Rocky Mountain Regional competition.
• At this year’s national Clean Snowmobile Challenge, a team of Colorado State engineering students won the clean emissions portion of the competition by designing a snowmobile that cuts pollution by more than 99 percent.
• The student chapter of the Society of Hispanic Engineers won the first regional Academic Olympiad.

"We are pleased to be ranked in the top 60 engineering programs and will continue to move toward new levels of faculty, student and research excellence," said Gallagher. "However, the knowledge our graduates obtain while at Colorado State and the valuable skills they take into the workforce will remain our primary measures of success."

Enrollment in Colorado State’s College of Engineering is at a 10-year high with 2,056 students, including 1,509 undergraduates. Twenty nine of this fall’s 327 incoming freshmen were valedictorians and 10 percent of the group had a 4.0 high school GPA; the average GPA was 3.75. Externally sponsored research, which makes up more than 70 percent of the college’s annual funding, is also at an all-time high at more than $38 million. According to Gallagher, students are the primary beneficiary’s of the college’s research activities.

"Increasing research activity is having positive impacts on our undergraduate instruction as Colorado State researchers are bringing their laboratory knowledge to the classroom and giving students more opportunities to get hands-on experience with real projects," Gallagher said.

Colorado State houses one of only three Colorado engineering colleges listed in U.S. News’ top 100, with less than one-half of a point (assessed on a scale from one to five) separating the Colorado State, Colorado School of Mines and University of Colorado at Boulder engineering programs.