Inaugural Ranking of the Top Undergraduate Construction Schools

As promised, here are the inaugural rankings of the top undergraduate construction management and construction engineering programs in the nation. The Top 10 List follows:

#1 Virginia Polytech. Inst. & State U., Blacksburg
#2 North Dakota State U., Fargo
#3 California State Polytechnic U., San Luis Obispo
#4 Florida International U., Miami
#5 North Carolina State U., Raleigh
#6 Purdue U. Calumet, Hammond, Ind.
#7 California State U., Sacramento
#8 U. of Nevada, Las Vegas
#9 U. of New Mexico, Albuquerque
#10 Alfred State College, Alfred, N.Y.

I hope a list like this will encourage discussion. A discussion similar to a College Football BCS debate of why a school should be ranked higher or lower; but, before we get started with that, let me explain a couple things – including my methodology.

I became interested in generating a list of top construction schools several years ago when I came across an Engineering News – Record (ENR) article entitled, The Nation’s C-Schools. This article provided me with the base data for my rankings and also the C-School term (like B-Schools for Business Schools) that I currently use for my blog title.

I was interesting in developing a list of top construction schools that I could use as I was relocated about the nation to work on healthcare construction projects. I wanted to find the best schools that would yield a consistently high level of entry-level construction professionals. A ranking list would help me focus my limited recruiting resources (time and money) as efficiently as possible.

I decided that a good way to gauge the construction industry’s interest in a particular C-School was to see how many construction firms were competing for the students graduating each term. I was able to come up with a numerical representation of construction industry interest for my rankings by dividing the number of construction firms recruiting from a particular program by the number of students graduating each term. Using this methodology, the Number #1 C-School was Virgina Tech which scored an impressive 5+ construction firms competing for each graduate.

I realize this list has numerous limitations, including:

- Rather “ancient” 2001 data is used to generate the list

- The difficulty of larger schools to compete with smaller schools when dealing with a ratio driven ranking system

- Schools that did not provide the data on number of graduates and recruiting organization where not included on the list (Refer to the bottom of the list for a few of these schools)

- I’m sure that the readers of this list can provide several more.

As mentioned above, my main intent with publishing this ranking list is to initiate the discussion of how construction schools stack up against one another, as I believe this can lead to improving the state of construction education. I hope you enjoy the rankings and please share your idea on a better ranking methodology and more current sources of information.

You can find another link to the rankings below, followed by a list of the Top 50 Programs:

Top Undergraduate Construction Programs

INSTITUTION/SPONSOR/PROGRAM
1 Virginia Polytech. Inst. & State U., Blacksburg
2 North Dakota State U., Fargo
3 California State Polytechnic U., San Luis Obispo (Arch) (ConM)
4 Florida International U., Miami
5 North Carolina State U., Raleigh
6 Purdue U. Calumet, Hammond, Ind.
7 California State U., Sacramento (CofE) (ConM)
8 U. of Nevada, Las Vegas
9 U. of New Mexico, Albuquerque 8
10 Alfred State College, Alfred, N.Y.
11 U. of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg
12 Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta
13 U. of Florida, Gainesville
14 U. of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio
15 Milwaukee School of Engineering, Wis.
16 Roger Williams U., Bristol, R.I.
17 Central Connecticut State U., New Britain
18 U. of Arkansas, Little Rock
19 Purdue U., West Lafayette, Ind. (CofE) (ConE and M)
20 Purdue U., West Lafayette, Ind. (CofTech) (ConM)
21 U. of Nebraska, Lincoln
22 U. of Maine, Orono
23 California State Polytechnic U., Pomona (CofE) (ConE)
24 Murray State U., Murray, Ky.
25 Kansas State U., Manhattan
26 Michigan State U., East Lansing
27 Arizona State U., Tempe
28 Boise State U., Boise, Idaho
29 U. of Oklahoma, Norman (Arch) (ConScience)
30 Clemson U., Clemson, S.C.
31 Bradley University, Peoria, Ill.
32 Oregon State U., Corvallis
33 Iowa State U., Ames
34 Texas Tech U., Lubbock (CofE) (ConE)
35 U. of Wisconsin-Stout, Menomonie
36 Wentworth Institute of Tech., Boston, Mass.
37 Auburn U., Auburn, Ala.
38 Colorado State U., Fort Collins
39 Ferris State U., Big Rapids., Mich.
40 Louisiana State U., Baton Rouge
41 U. of Southern California, Los Angeles
42 U. of Wisconsin, Platteville
43 Temple U., Philadelphia, Pa.
44 Washington State U., Pullman
45 Indiana State U., Terre Haute
46 California State U., Chico (CofE) (ConM)
47 Eastern Michigan U., Ypsilanti
48 Oklahoma State U., Stillwater (CofE) (ConM)
49 U. of Washington, Seattle
50 U. of Nebraska, Omaha

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